#i downloaded this interview weeks ago but just never got around to it

[greenmp3]

julia louis-dreyfus on the late show with david letterman, 1994

#i wanted to make a gif version of that one post for so long #i downloaded this interview weeks ago but just never got around to it #julia louis dreyfus #* #what else to tag lol

[littlemisslipbalm]

“you get me” (famous!y/n x harry)

Famous!y/n x Harry Styles

First Harry fic so please be kind, but feedback is SUPER appreciated

Initially inspired by the picture of Harry leaving the Gucci store with 15 bags but barely has anything to do with that lol

Definitely thought of Ellen for the interview idk why tho - also I struggle with writing Harry’s dialogue because I really want to get it right, but hopefully the more practice I get, the better/more natural it will sound. ALSO i have like no music or music industry background lol. Somewhat proofread, but its 2:30 am so it could be shit

Fluff!

Warnings: maybe some angst over being famous per say, past loneliness

Word Count: 3.7k literally howwww, i’m going to do a pt. 2 though because it was kind of a long set up and feelingsssss

---

Interviewer: Please, welcome our next guest, a woman who’s sure to have her name written up beside the music greats someday, Ms. Y/N L/N!

You can’t contain the grin that spreads to your face as you carry yourself out onto the stage and see the audience cheering for you. It was your third big interview since your first album had been released and you’d seen your fame skyrocket over night. This being the third one this week meant you’d gotten comfortable getting asked questions, but you also weren’t bored of it yet. It was exhilarating being the center of attention, especially for something that had been your life’s work up until this point. You always had to fight for whatever you got and the recognition you were starting to have was reassurance that you hadn’t been a fool to risk a safe and certain life for your dreams.

The interview begins as the rest had, a few pleasantries, how you were feeling, and then the introduction of the album. The host asked you what your inspiration was for some of the songs and the album name and cover. You loved to talk about the music, it was the whole reason you were there. The meaning, the sound, the name, it all meant so much to you and you talked about how music can be interpreted differently by everyone and even the shifts in someone’s mood can change a song’s meaning, but what it meant to you at the time of writing was always something specific. You practiced those answers in the mirror before the interviews because they were important to you and you didn’t want your words on your art to ever be misconstrued. The host then complimented your style and you were at the point where you thought your interview should be wrapping up when they asked you one more question, and it threw you for a loop.

Interviewer: So Y/N, we’ve been hearing some rumblings around, about you and another famous musician, Mr. Harry Styles. Anything going on there?

Your face heated up, you hadn’t been expecting a personal question about possible relationships. Nothing like this had been asked of you at your previous interviews. It’s about the music, the art, and who you were, it’s always about that and nothing more. To be honest, you were a bit annoyed the host had chosen to stray from those topics. You didn’t care for the celebrity side of being a famous musician, the lack of privacy, the prying eyes of media and the general public. They saw enough of you through your art, you bore your soul through music why did they want to peak into your heart as well?

Y/N: I don’t know if I’d rather be with Harry Styles or actually be Harry Styles. Like, he’s literally such an icon, I want to be able to walk out of a Gucci store after spending hours there with 15 bags full of my purchases and helpers to carry it all out c’mon… He’s also an amazing songwriter, musician, and performer, of course. Didn’t mean to sound superficial, but I’d also love to own even half of his closet.

You hadn’t really answered the question, but the audience laughed and the host obviously got the hint that you weren’t interested in fanning any flames of romance with Harry Styles or anyone else. For one, you didn’t even know the man, but you had always been a loving fan of his. You cited him as one of your role models when you were first starting to try and break into the music world. Second, if you did know him, that wouldn’t be an appropriate topic for your album press junket going on, even if it meant more publicity because of Harry’s big celebrity status. The host decided to qualify their original question with a final sentiment.

Interviewer: I totally feel the same way! I only ask because the outpouring of support you’ve received seems to be from similar groups who also follow Harry. Many have been comparing your sound to his solo career work.

Y/N: Ah...well that’s very kind of people to say. He’s definitely a big inspiration, his creativity and drive is incredible. I’d love to be as successful as him someday.

The interview ended. You and the host shook hands and you waved and sent kisses to the crowd before retreating backstage. You were exhausted, but happy. You hoped to avoid anymore stressful interview questions that didn’t truly revolve around music. Of course, life is never that simple.

-

One month later

You had done countless more interviews and talk shows as promo for your album and the buzz around it had continued to grow. Your fame continued to rise as well and that one question you had dodged at your third interview had come back around to bite you, naturally. Daily Mail’s dumb headline read: “Y/N can’t decide! Date Harry Styles or Steal His Closet?” The Sun was also running with your response and miscontruing it completely, something about how you were madly in love with Harry but jealous of his designer partnerships, you couldn’t even stomach reading the garbage. This was your worst nightmare. Not only was it taking away the focus from your album, but you were also sure this dumb gossip had reached the very set of ears that the gossip was allegedly also about.

You had signed with Columbia Records for your first album, the same record label as Harry Styles, so managers had been in contact with one another about the whole fiasco trying to get the actual truth - which was that the two of you didn’t even know each other and there were no problems whatsoever. Your manager also brought along the good news that Harry had actually listened to your album and loved it, “He said ‘Congratulations’ by the way, loved the sound. Said he’d heard you were very music focused and be open to do some mentoring on songwriting and vocal specifics, if you wanted. It’d have to be in private though, obviously.” She had added the last bit, but you understood why. To have the opportunity to discuss your music with one of your longtime role models, heroes even, was beyond anything you could have imagined coming from your album’s success. And it made the drama all the more palatable because now you at least got to talk to Harry like the media was so adamantly saying you were doing already.

You nodded quickly and agreed, while trying to keep your teenage fangirl excitement hidden below your mature now-famous musician facade. Like you said, Harry was your hero, he’d been your hero since you were in middle school and had Up All Night downloaded on your iPod touch, blasting it as loud as possible, sound hitting your poster-filled walls. You weren’t the same girl as you were then, obviously, you had grown up to be a strong, independent, and confident woman. But, you still smiled at the thought of your younger self with your baby face squealing in the nosebleeds at the Take Me Home Tour (where you swore Harry had looked straight at you) and her seeing you now, dressed in a sleek outfit setting up an appointment to meet with Harry to discuss your first album, a success.

-

The next Thursday evening

You took a deep breath, in through your nose and out through your pursed lips. You were anxious and excited at the exact same time. Your meeting with Harry was tonight, right now actually, and you hadn’t been able to think about much else since your manager had confirmed the meeting last week. She got you the details a couple of days ago, the location: his house in Malibu, the time: 5:45 P.M. You had brought along a copy of your album on vinyl because you thought it sounded best this way, second only to performing it live.

Choosing your outfit for tonight was probably the toughest decision you’d ever made, harder than choosing between an education and following your dreams, harder than choosing your favorite Beatles song. You didn’t want to worry so much, this wasn’t a date you kept reminding yourself, but everything you tried on earlier kept having something wrong with it, too dressy, too boring, too ‘not yourself’. You had settled for these blue high-waisted pants that you’d worn to your first ever podcast interview, a thin black long sleeve, and a brown leather coat that fell below your hips with vans sneakers, casual, simple, yet still true to you and your vibe.

You raised your free arm and formed a fist, hesitant to knock, as if you’d damage Harry’s seemingly perfect Malibu beachfront home by knocking too hard on the wooden front door. You waited a few moments and could here some shuffling behind the door, some incoherent words were seemingly said, but the walls muffled them before they could reach for ears. Soon enough, Harry Styles in the flesh was before you. He beamed down at you, huffing, slightly out of breath as if he had been clear across the house when you knocked. His strong figure towered above your far smaller stature. He was hanging onto the door since he had opened it only slightly. “Hello, Y/N?” he greeted and questioned simultaneously. “Hi,” you responded and extended the same hand that had just rapped against his now open door. He gripped it, ushering you into his home, “Come in, come in, it’s nice to meet you, don’t want you to catch a cold now do we?” He took note of your strong handshake and ring clad fingers.

He walked you into an area between the kitchen and a sitting area. The kitchen was open aside from a bar high top between the two rooms. You sat down at his prompting and made yourself comfortable. “I brought my record on vinyl, sounds best in my opinion, otherwise I’d recommend seeing it live,” you laughed as you handed the vinyl to him and took off your coat. “Technically, y’know, I could hear it live right now, if you were willin’ f’course,” Harry had responded over his shoulder as he placed the vinyl by his idle record player, “Anything to drink?” “Just water for me, please.” His accent was even stronger in person, especially since he had moved back to London and seldomly stayed in California, except for business and quick trips. As far as you knew, he had already been here on business for the week and was able to pencil you in.

You two settled in, with your waters, seated at the bar top beside each other, but swivelling the chairs to face one another more. Again, you were overwhelmed with the reality of the situation, sitting beside Harry Styles as professionals, peers even. He had heard your work and liked it enough to want to discuss it with you. It was a day you never thought would come to pass. He started off not by asking about the music right away, but about how you were doing with the whirlwind that stardom is. “How are you, Y/N? It’s been somewhat of a out of the frying pan into the fire kind of moment for you?” He stared at you intently, caring to hear your answer.

You couldn’t help but chuckle again and contain your smile, “Thank you for asking, Harry. Yeah, its been definitely stressful, but it’s everything I’ve ever wanted and more so the good is still outweighing any bad. Definitely, fucking exhausted though, dunno how many more interviews I can do before my jaw goes completely rigid from talking so much.” It’s Harry’s turn to laugh, his eyes shone with intrigue at what you said and how you said it. You were gorgeous, but it was how your hands helped you through what you were trying to say and the small laughs you tried to keep in while you amused yourself with your words that really made him want to hear you talk all night long.

He agreed about how the promo junket for an album can get tedious and tiresome, but also the absolute fulfillment you get from people loving the music you’ve made. The two of you chatted about surface level personal matters for a little more, but quickly moved to the music. “I took a listen a couple weeks after the album was released. I especially loved the last track. It reminded me so much of a song I never released, actually…” he trailed off.

Your final track had been a ballad, an homage to George Harrison with your use of guitar and sitar, but the lyrics were a story based off of a poem you had written one night in high school. It surrounded a girl never feeling quite good enough for the person she wanted to be with and how it happened everytime, everytime she was ready to giver herself to someone, they were always closed off. Of course it held some truth to your own life and feelings, but you wrote this girl as someone with a seemingly perfect life - when yours was obviously far from any semblance of perfection.

You wondered what Harry’s song would have sounded like, had it been about a seemingly perfect girl or a guy with a seemingly perfect life, always giving himself to the wrong person and getting destroyed by that very fact because he was impatient as the girl in your song had been. “Can I ask, how so? How’d it remind you of your own song, the words or the music?” “Oh, the story, I felt like that for a time in my life and I like to be vulnerable in my songs because it helps me process, but listening to it back has always been too painful. Could never release that or perform it, it’d wreck me.” You nodded, you completely got where he was coming from. You noticed his downcast eyes and his somber tone, you knew not to push it any further.

It was quiet and you decided it’d be okay to take his hand resting between the two of you. “Harry, I understand,” your sincerity spilled into the words, filling the quiet house, “It’s not easy. Feeling that way. Thinking you’re the only goddamn one and why the fuck does it always happen to you? I used to ask my ceiling ‘why me?’ every night of high school” you smiled then. “But you know how it is,” you rubbed your thumb over his large warm hand and he lifted his head, “it gets so much better - c’mon look at us now! It can get hard, too, all this, I’m sure. But our lives? They’re amazing!” He beamed as he had when he had first seen you at his door and when you’d first really spoke. He moved his hand from under your palm to weave your fingers with his, both of your hands with covered in rings and they clinked to fit together, finally resting perfectly fitted. He shook your two hands up and down, “God, you’re so right! That damn song, m’sorry always puts me in a mood,” he shakes his head, “not yours though, f’course, s’lovely, better than my sodding song” he finishes quickly.

After that, the mood lightened right back up. It filled you with such appreciation for Harry that he would trust you so much with such a personal detail since you two had just met. But maybe, he had trusted you because he had felt that same spark between you. It wasn’t necessarily a romantic spark, but it was obvious the two of you were kindred spirits. Besides your album, the two of you talked about everything. You loved the same bands, movies and books, you both loved to cook and had similar fashion taste, you even had the same person type - something you found out late into the night.

At the end of the Side B of your album, Harry switched to a Bill Evans record that had ‘Peace Piece’ on it. You loved that song. So did he. “So...planning to raid my closet?” Harry raised his brows from the record player and walked back to you. You almost sputtered the water in your mouth. Luckily, you got it down. “Pardon?” “All that bad press the two of us have been getting...I watched the interview that kind of ignited the tabloids. You’re obviously not used to those overstepping personal questions.” You nodded. “It’s fine, even if you’d completely shut it down, the tabloids probably would have picked it up still, they snap up anything and everything, true or not.” You softened at his reassurance. You hadn’t expected Harry to bring the interview up, but you were sure he wasn’t happy about it, he was so private, especially about his love life. “Thanks, I’m sorry I tried to laugh it off, kind of made it worse, didn’t I?” “No! Thought it was hilarious and I totally appreciated the sentiment. Little ol’me, an icon? And an amazing artist? All I gotta do is watch that clip and I’ve fed my narcissistic side for the week!” You giggled and replied slyly, “So does that mean I can raid your closet? As compensation, of course.” Harry threw his head back in an all consuming laughter, when he’d composed himself he looked in your eyes again and said, “You just...God, you get me.”

Harry had continued to put records on throughout the night, diligently flipping sides and asking for requests, he of course had an extensive collection. The two of you had moved onto his plush couch that looked out his french doors to the beautiful ocean view. Finally, your exhaustion caught up to you, mid-Harry describing his latest travel fiasco, you glanced up at the clock. You gasped. Harry stopped. “When did it get to be half 12?” you questioned almost incredulously, “I’ve gotta get home, Harry, but this has been truly amazing, more than I could have asked for, so thank you.” Your speech began to rush as you started to get up and gather your things, that had slowly scattered as you’d gotten more comfortable, jacket by the table, shoes around the back of the couch, your phone forgotten somewhere in the couch. You couldn’t believe you’d spent almost seven hours just talking with Harry Styles.

Harry quickly stood up from his relaxed positioned on the couch and asked if you were alright to drive this late. You scoffed, “Oh please, I’ve driven around at 3 am before, I just have to turn up the music and I can cruise.” He smiled, “This was great, Y/N, I know we didn’t really go super in depth into your writing process, but I’d love to write with you sometime or just hang out again f’course. Your seriously talented and obviously a wonderful person.” He didn’t include that he felt like he’d never met anyone like you, never met someone so perfectly matched to himself, in passions but also in work ethic and demeanor - compassionate yet confident. He felt like you got him perfectly and he got you. You had stopped your scramble to gather yourself and now you were both smiling at one another.

This had really been an unforgettable night, you couldn’t believe how well you two had meshed, like childhood friends reconnecting after years apart. “Can I give yeh a hug before you go?” Harry’s voice had grown raspier as the night had progressed. He had grown rather tired an hour ago, but had pushed through because they had been having so much fun and you hadn’t noticed his physical fading or the time, obviously. You stepped toward him and his large tattooed arms enveloped you into his body. His body truly dwarfed yours now as he held you to his chest. You both were warm and soft. He tucked his head on top of yours that rested on his chest. Your arms were loosely resting where his back met his waist because you would have had to strain to get them to encircle him. His arms rested around your small frame. “Love your jacket,” he mumbled into your hair. His rough voice was quiet, but the house was silent otherwise, Tusk Side C had finished around when you had noticed the time. The embrace lasted long, but it felt so amazing you had a hard time pulling yourself away, but you had to get back home.

“G’night Harry” you said softly at the threshold of his home. He had insisted on walking you to the front door at least, since you had declined his offer to walk you out to your car on the street. “G’night. Safe travels.”

You got in your car and headed to your apartment in the city. You didn’t bother digging for your phone so you turned on the radio and drove home singing whatever came on, including your own song at one point. The whole time you drove with a grin. Harry was the nicest person you’d ever met and you were confident that the two of you were friends now. As you pulled into your parking garage it dawned on you why you hadn’t connected your phone immediately when you got in your car. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” you put the car in park and rested your palms in the depressions of your eyesockets, over your closed eyelids, and rubbed hard. “Fuck!” It was far too late to drive back out to Malibu for your phone and you obviously couldn’t text Harry that you’d left your phone at his place, despite the two of you exchanging numbers during the night for future hang outs, so they didn’t have to be arranged through your managers, like playdates. Even if he found your phone between the cushions, he couldn’t drop it at your place in the morning because he didn’t know your address. This was a whole mess, you thought. You’d have to drive over in the morning and hope he was still there or email your manager from your computer. The former meant you got to see Harry sooner and likely your phone, too.

part 2

-

@berrynarrybanana​

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #har #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles fan fic #I DID IT #I sat down and wrote it #and it took forever #and I need to write a second part but I made something coherent #one direction fanfiction #not my gifs #my writing #I love you h #you get me #my writings

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Rachel Nobel / Rae Lynn

Rachel Nobel, aka Rae Lynn, has 2 fics at Gossamer, but she’s written many more X-Files stories than that. You can also find fics by her at AO3 and various other archives. She’s one of the rare, special authors who’s posted numerous fic during the show’s original run and again in recent years. Big thanks to Rachel for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)? Absolutely. I joined a Facebook group for fanfic writers where someone recognized my name and asked about some of my stories that have disappeared from the Internet, and I almost fell off my chair. On the other hand, I go back and read original-run fanfic all the time - the Wayback Machine is my best friend for all the late great fanfic archives. Like fine wines, they get better with age! What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it? I was fairly young during the peak of the fandom - I was only 12 when I started watching the show and discovered the fandom online. A few years ago, right around the time we learned the revival was coming, I wrote an essay I called "How 'The X-Files' defined my adolescence," in which I wrote: "If you think about it, 'The X-Files' is a lot like adolescence: You start out thinking it's going to be a little hokey, NBD, and then you end up in its thrall, captivated and occasionally hugely let down. A lot of people behave strangely, and no one gets out unscathed. Mulder, in his own weird way, is the perfect mirror for an adolescent: He doesn't fit in; his life careens between being utterly consequential to the fate of the known universe and being completely pointless; he's socially awkward and can't quite nail it down with the girl of his dreams."

So for me, the fandom is inextricably bound up with adolescence, that feeling of vacillating between desperate loneliness and being on the verge of something enormously significant. Take romance: I was a bit of a late bloomer, and when all my friends were exploring their first relationships I was watching Mulder and Scully navigate this beautiful, complicated, soulful relationship without ever even kissing. That was deeply affecting for me as a teen.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)? I started out on mailing lists - there was an EMXC mailing list and one that I think was called X-Angst. [Lilydale note: There was a mailing list called XAngst Anonymous.] This was back at the dawn of the Internet when I only had 10 hours of AOL access a month, and I remember using what AOL called a "FlashSession" to log on, download all the fanfic from the mailing list and log off to read it. I vividly remember the excitement of watching all that new fanfic flood my inbox! Later on I was on atxc. During the long summer between "Gethsemane" and "Redux," it felt like fanfic was at its peak. There was a group of about a dozen women who got together (virtually) to discuss a work in progress by Lydia Bower called "Primal Sympathy." We called ourselves the "Primal Screamers," and we had our own website with fanfic recommendations and other discussions (it cracked me up to locate us as an entry on Fanlore.org). I was still in high school at the time and I was the youngest member; I felt like I had been accepted into a cool underground club. I worshipped these women, who were fanfic writers themselves. They taught me everything I knew about how to be a decent, respectful, enthusiastic consumer and writer of fanfic and fandom. [Lilydale note: I’ve talked enthusiastically about the Primal Screamers here before, including their fanfic primer.] What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general? In the '90s, I would have been embarrassed to tell anyone I read fanfic, let alone that I was writing it. Now, I look back on it and realize how talented and smart and passionate we all were. It's something to be proud of. What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show? The first episode I ever saw was "Shadows," which was on in reruns between the second and third seasons. I don't think "Shadows" is an episode that anyone today would consider thematically significant, but something about seeing those office supplies float spookily through the air - it wasn't like anything I had seen on television, and I wanted in. What got you involved with X-Files fanfic? I've always been a person who, when I am interested in something, seeks to learn more about it. So I guess I got online as a 12-year-old with this new interest and discovered fanfic. It was thrilling to find out that so many talented people were taking characters I loved and bringing them to life for me. When the screen faded to black each week and I wondered, "That's it? What next?", fanfic was always there to fill in the blanks and take Mulder and Scully to the next level. As a teenager, I was self-indulgent enough to think I had something to contribute, too. Most of what I wrote in the '90s would today make me cringe. I remember literally paging through the dictionary in search of erudite words I thought Mulder and Scully would say! But occasionally I'll feel brave enough to read an old story and I feel encouraged to see a spark: a turn of phrase or a fragment of dialogue that I still feel proud of. I write professionally now, but I've never written fiction that isn't X-Files fiction, so it's something that has really allowed me to hone my creative juices in a different way. What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom? Sometimes I feel like the Statler and Waldorf of the fandom, like I'm sitting up in the balcony grousing "Back in my day...!" Because the fandom is remarkably robust, and I've gotten involved with it to an extent on Twitter and AO3, and now all these young whippersnappers idolize Mulder and Scully just as much if not more as I ever did! Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files? Not really, no. I've of course consumed a lot of media since The X-Files that I wanted to discuss with others - I'm a huge "Harry Potter" nerd, and I was outraged when Netflix canceled "The OA" - but strangely I've never had the urge to read or write fanfic about anything other than "The X-Files." Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully? Every Thursday night! I watch a chosen episode with a group of fans on Twitter and tweet about it - #tbtXFiles. That's great fun. There are episodes I've seen dozens of times over the years and episodes I think I only ever watched once, and it's always enlightening to watch them again with a certain critical eye. When I was a fan during the original run, I really idolized Mulder; I loved episodes where we saw him in all his cracked genius glory. Scully was a trailblazer of a character, of course, but I think the fandom has evolved over the years to give Scully her due. Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom? I was fairly stunned when the revival came around and I realized that people were still writing X-Files fic, and that a lot of it was so good. So yes, I do read fic on Archive of Our Own. But my heart is always with the early days of fanfic. In the revival when Mulder says "I've always wondered how this was going to end" - that felt to me almost like a love letter to fanfic authors who had been trying to answer that question for 25 years. Surprisingly, I've never had the urge to read fic in another fandom. Every time I try, it just feels like I'm cheating on Mulder and Scully. Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors? My favorite author back in the day was Kipler. Her stories were just like real episodes of the show I could vividly imagine in my mind. I adore syntax6, particularly "20" and "The Birthday Stories," because of the way she perfectly and poignantly captures vignettes that span the entire series. Another favorite is Dawn and her "Blood Ties" series - I started out as a "NoRomo," and Dawn was one of the authors who made me believe Mulder and Scully could have a romantic relationship that really worked. And I always had a soft spot for Profiler!Mulder stories, so to this day I mourn the unfinished state of the great Kronos fic "Ascent to Hell." One fic I always come back to that captures profiling Mulder really well is "Domination of Lies," by cslatton. And then there are stories that I consider classics: "Corpse" by Livengoo, "Oklahoma" by Amperage and Livengoo, the "Revelations" and "All Hallow's Eve" series by Windsinger. What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise? I have a soft spot for a story I wrote called "Human Credential." I was attempting, a quarter-century after the first season of the show, to set a story in the very early days of the partnership (which these days is one of my favorite kinds of fanfic to read), and I felt like I nailed it. Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online? I have been doing both of these, as a matter of fact! Or in my case, they are oldies that made it online but vanished when Geocities went belly-up, for example, that I sometimes go back to and reshape. Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work? As the swallows return to Capistrano, I seem to always return to writing fic at periods of transition in my life. The first time I "retired" from fanfic, I wasn't even in college yet! If one can be nostalgic at 21 years old for something one gave up at 17, I was nostalgic for fanfic, and I picked it back up again in grad school. Then I became a teacher and a wife and a mom and years passed, and the revival seduced me back into it again. But the vast majority of fanfic I've written is firmly planted in the first seven seasons of the show - poor Mulder and Scully never seem to get to grow up in my stories. What's the story behind your pen name? I wrote under a lot of pen names over the years! When I first started writing fanfic, no one knew anything about Internet safety and it didn't occur to me that it wasn't wise to use my real name. There was a period when I would have been mortified if anyone discovered my stories under my real name - now, at least I can write it off as a youthful indulgence! When I finally grew into a more mature writer, I started using the name Rae Lynn, which is almost-but-not-quite my real first and middle names. Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions? As far as I know, unless my friends and acquaintances have done some sleuthing, only my husband knows I still write fanfic. And he's never read it, though he's kind enough to give me a glazed-eyes indulgent smile if I ever talk about it. Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now? I am xraelynn on AO3! I have about a dozen stories there - some of them I wrote 15 years ago and some of them are brand spanking new. Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Fanfic is a true labor of love. Fanfic authors don't write fanfic for money or fame; they do it because they love it. Sites like AO3 and Tumblr have made it so much easier to show your appreciation to writers (::gruff reminiscing voice:: back in my day, you had to send them an email, and now you can just click the "kudos" button!). I can only speak for myself, but I really thrive on that feedback - otherwise I'm just Mulder in his cramped hovel of a home office waiting for Scully to nag me to shave my beard. Every so often I think about the fact that there is so much high-quality writing about these characters I've loved for decades just available on the Internet for free and it feels like a true gift.

(Posted by Lilydale on May 4, 2021)

#old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #rachel nobel #rae lynn

[spicysoftsweet]

Chapter 13

Masterlist 

cw: nsfw, timeskip

 “Mmm.”

A soft moan of pleasure left Kumi’s lips as she continued to roll her hips slowly, a smile on her face as she leaned forward, letting her palms glide up her partner’s chest. His eyes seemed to glaze over with lust still as he looked upon her breasts, and she giggled.

It truly was nice to be with someone who definitely loved you more than you loved them, she thought fleetingly, then attempted to banish the idea from her own mind.

Perhaps it was an unkind thought. She liked the guy she was currently riding enough; Seiichi was nice to look at with heavy-lidded eyes, shaggy dirty blonde hair and an easy going smile, and he had been attentive and caring to her through these last couple of years as they futzed through medical school together.

At graduation just a couple weeks ago, he’d asked her how she felt about the two of them becoming official and she’d avoided the question, and he’d known better not to bring it up again. Kumi considered that he’d perhaps ask again now, now that she was hovering above him and his hands pressed firmly around her waist and she could feel her stomach coil tighter and tighter the longer they moved together.

He didn’t just like her more, he liked her too much for her comfort, she’d realized.

“Kumi, I-” he began, cheeks flushed, but then she’d cut him off abruptly.

“I’m moving back to Tokyo-” she blurted out, right before she felt herself snap and let out a strangled cry as she climaxed and promptly collapsed onto him. She could barely see his look of distress as he took in this sudden news, his cock softening inside her almost immediately, but she could feel the quickening pace of his heart. 

It was an asshole move.

“You’re what?” He asked.

Kumi shifted her legs as he slipped out of her, then rolled over to the side so that she was staring at the ceiling and not at him.

“I’m leaving this weekend,” she repeated, cheeks still warm as she recovered from her orgasm. The pensive, slightly amused look on her face was unchanging, as though she had simply told him about a funny dream she’d had, and Seiichi, who had thought he was making some progress all these years realized all at once that he’d never even cracked the surface of her frozen heart. The idea of him having wasted his time so thoroughly aggravated him suddenly.

“Were you ever going to fucking say anything?” He hissed. “Or did it just hit you spur of the moment to say something like this?”

She turned towards him, noting his now red-faced and angry expression, and placed a hand on his cheek, caressing it softly. There was something akin to pity in her look, but not love.

“I didn’t think it was important,” she replied simply.

She could have left it at that, and Seiichi may have calmed down and even considered bargaining with her - trips back and forth maybe, a vacation here or there, she just had to tell him that she still wanted him, in some capacity, and it would still be alright.

“You are important to me,” he said and attempted to mirror her action, but frowning, Kumi moved backwards and quickly made her way off the bed, redressing herself.

He watched her with anticipation, anxiety choking the words in his throat as she got ready to leave.

After an unnecessarily silent period of time, she turned to him and smiled widely, something unnatural and painful and flat all at once.

“I’m sorry, I don’t feel the same way.”

---

“Why did you decide to become a doctor?”

Kumi hated this question every single time it was asked. The truest answer was when my middle school boyfriend died in a gang fight in front of me, mostly due to self-inflicted injury that could have been preventable if only I had the skills, but it wasn’t exactly the answer that earned her points with anyone. If anything, it only invited more unnecessary questions.

Instead, she offered something generic like, “I’ve always had a passion to take care of others and found that I was interested in the science of the human body and thus pursued my passion in this way.” It was sufficiently true, she figured, even if it wasn’t as exciting a reason.

The interviewer seemed to be impressed enough with the lackluster response, as she expected. Her grades were excellent, after all, so this interview was somewhat of a formality. The only thing that worried her was whether or not she was ready to move back to Tokyo for residency, and decided after very brief contemplation that she was.

It had been so many years since that event had happened, after all. She couldn’t possibly still be hung up on the past.

People died all the time; years of medical school had taught her this. She could prevent some death but not all.

When she’d received the residency position, she was excited as the program was top rated in the country for emergency medicine training, but then recalled that she likely had no one left in Tokyo. Her parents had long since moved to the United States permanently along with her grandmother who had taken her in charge up until she’d started college, and her brother, many years older, lived on the other end of the country. They weren’t close, even if she had wanted to be.

She had no one left. She’d even briefly wondered if she could bring Seiichi with her, and realized it would be too cruel to use him in this way. Seiichi would remain in their city, pursuing specialization in pediatrics, so his goals and her goals wouldn’t be compatible anyway.

Why Tokyo?

Her mother hated even the idea of moving back there, and she’d had to reassure her repeatedly that more than ten years had passed, so there was no way she’d return to that dark place she’d been in the latter fourteenth and entire fifteenth year of her life.

“Are you sure?” Her mother pressed.

“Yes, mom,” she reassured her. “I won’t even be living on the same side of the city.”

And I’m past it, she thought.

With that, she moved to a small apartment in Tokyo alone on a Saturday morning and started her first day of work as a newly minted doctor that very Monday.

The first day was busy and the emergency department was as busy and as hectic as she should have expected being in a major city, but she survived after putting in her hours, clocking out sometime between 13 to 15 hours after the beginning of her shift, exhausted and with no one to go home to. As she sat on the train, trying not to let her tired eyes glaze over, she downloaded a dating app, swiped left and right on a couple of strange faces then sighed loudly.

It was a dumb idea to meet men if she was going to have no one to call in case of an emergency.

Kumi made it to her new home, hopping into the shower, and changing into soft shorts and a pajama shirt immediately before preparing some instant noodles for dinner. She made a mental note to buy some real groceries sometime this weekend. She then quickly texted a message to her parents to tell them her first day had gone well.

She would be fine.

As she ate her meal in silence, her mind flitted to Kaksi for a moment. She wondered how she was doing. Should she contact her? They hadn’t spoken in over a decade. Did she miss her? Was she even still in this city?

She finished her meal and shook off the thought of digging up past relationships. She wouldn’t want to burrow too deeply and be hurt by what she found.

---

Kaksi rested the ends of her chopsticks on the dark blue and white hashioki in front of her. Then her brown eyes wandered outside, enjoying Tokyo’s skyline through the large glass windows of the private room she shared with her friend. Blue eyes studied her features quietly, while slender fingers brought the white chopsticks to rosy lips.

“Did you not like the food?”

“Oh, I did,” Kaksi replied in a soft voice. “I’m just not very hungry.”

Senju didn’t say anything for a moment. By now she had memorised all of Kaksi’s habits, which made it usually easy for her to pick up on her emotions and thoughts.

“Are you nervous?” she asked before taking a sip of her drink.

Kaksi smiled.

“I guess I am.”

Was this moment shared together their goodbye? As much as Senju preferred not to dwell on the future, she couldn’t ignore the inevitable change that Kazutora’s return would bring into her life. She had made a mistake, growing too comfortable treating Kaksi like she was hers when she was someone else’s all along.

Senju had never met Manjiro Sano despite the similar lifestyle they shared but back when Kaksi would still talk about him, she compared them a lot. Brahman’s leader used to believe she was nothing like him, the idea of ever leaving Kaksi behind unthinkable to her but now she wondered if the reason behind their fall out wasn’t just Mikey trying to spare his own feelings, something Senju failed to do by falling for her best friend.

She had been foolish to think Kaksi would fail to keep her promise. While they had shared more kisses that they could both count and uncovered the secrets to each other’s body in between almost forbidden confessions, Senju still wasn’t the one Kaksi wished to have by her side, or maybe she did. It had felt like she did so many times and it still felt that way as they walked out of the expensive restaurant too close to each other.

Kaksi’s hands were always so cold but Senju liked to warm them up. Tonight however the brunette wouldn’t let her like she had been doing for the past months. Senju was being selfish again, she knew. Kaksi couldn’t say no, not to her, not when she would give her those pleading blue eyes or slide her hand around her waist.

“Sen,” she said, irritated and distancing herself from her best friend.

But this time she had to say no.

“I don’t think I can do it, Kaksi.”

Kazutora would be out of jail in a few days and Kaksi had already planned out a future for them, one that she had desired ever since they had promised to never leave each other’s side back when they were children. It was unfair that she couldn’t preserve what she had built for the past years but if it wasn’t her then who would watch out for Kazutora? There was an obligation Kaksi felt to him, one that she felt like she could never get rid of but this was also what she wanted.

“I don’t think he would be happy in Tokyo,” she told her.

Senju rolled her eyes at her answer. Why was it that Kaksi always had to make her life revolve around him?

“Aren’t you happy in Tokyo?” she asked, voice louder as her irritation grew.

“I need a change of air.”

“Do you need a change of air or do you think Kazutora needs one?” Senju replied. “Because those are two very different things.”

“I think we do.”

Senju stayed quiet for a moment. She wondered if Kaksi could see that what she felt was beyond jealousy. If Kaksi didn’t want to stay by her side that was fine by her, as painful as it was but she wished her best friend would choose herself instead of someone else sometimes.

“You know, you can’t make decisions for others, Kaksi,” Senju reminded her. “You can only make decisions for yourself.”

Kaksi chuckled but it was irritation that she felt.

“This is not how I want things to end between us before I leave for Osaka,” Kaksi told her.

Then you could just stay, at least.

“I don’t think there is any other way for it to end,” Senju admitted, her blue eyes not hiding a sadness she had been containing for too long.

Kaksi fell silent, not sure about what she could say if this was really how they were meant to say goodbye to each other. Senju took a deep breath.

“I hope Kazutora and you enjoy Osaka,” she said with a genuine smile, contrasting with the disappointment and sadness she felt moments before.

But she meant those words. Maybe she was the one who didn’t get it, maybe this was what Kazutora desired and maybe this was something only Kaksi could offer and wanted to offer. There was nothing rational about feelings after all but even after experiencing all of those emotions, Senju couldn’t help thinking only a bit of madness could explain Kaksi’s behaviour sometimes.

If she did get it though. Then there was only one thing she needed Kaksi to remember even though she was choosing Kazutora right now and had planned to always do so.

“But if you don’t then come back to me in Tokyo.”

Kaksi’s eyes filled with tears at the sight of Senju’s smile. She couldn’t smile back but she nodded as she watched her walk away, in a direction she wouldn’t follow this time.

---

“You said you grew up in the city, right?” The girl situated beside Kumi asked, turning slightly in the booth of the bar. The man sitting directly across from her, who from the beginning of the gaokon had seemed to have set his sights on her, perked his ears up.

“I thought you were foreign!” he asked, and she flashed her most charming smile in response despite mild irritation, accepting a drink from her coworker as she spoke.

“Nope, I’ve been here since early childhood. Briefly moved just outside Kyoto in my teen years, but I guess technically Tokyo is my home,” she explained.

The young man before her nodded, leaning just close enough that she began to grow uncomfortable. She couldn’t tell if the man’s interest was related to an expectation that she’d put out more readily than the other women on this date, and just because of that, she was determined not to spend the night with him. Instead, she focused her attention on the girl behind her who was also desperately trying to avoid eye contact with another guy who had latched onto her.

This group blind date was a bust.

Kumi didn’t feel too bad about it, however. She would appreciate anything that allowed her not to think about work. An adolescent boy had come in earlier in the day with a stab wound, and despite the fact that this was not the first time she’d seen injured children or the sequela of gang violence, perhaps the fact that she was back in this city made it such that the event had unearthed some trauma. She found that her hands shook as she stabilized the teen and for a moment, she thought she had even seen a flash of Baji in that young boy and temporarily forgot how to breathe.

That couldn’t happen again.

She should be over it. She had to be.

“Would you like to meet again?” The man whose name she’d long since forgotten - Tadashi? Satoshi? - asked her at the close of the evening, when she’d made it sufficiently clear that she was just interested in going home.

She should have said no, but instead she politely exchanged phone numbers with him, fully intending to block him in three to five days.

But who knew when she’d be lonely again?

---

A week later, Kumi could get over the haunting visage of the young boy who looked everything and nothing like Baji, but she couldn’t get over the sudden talk of gang activity on the news she let play in the background while she reviewed medical publications.

A horrific truck accident, involving a young woman about her age, had taken the news by storm. Listening closer, she heard a name that sounded familiar but not recognizable.

Hinata Tachibana.

It felt like a name she should remember, but she figured they might have interacted before she had relocated for high school, and most of the things and people from before then were essentially blocked out of her memory.

But not the name Toman.

Kumi perked up, sipping onto her tea and folding her legs beneath her as she sat on the couch, finally setting her paper aside, now that the television had caught her interest. There were no real suspects, but the death was thought to be related to this group, as were a series of other random execution-like killings. Kumi took a look at the still image of the young woman’s face, eyes wide, noting that she definitely looked familiar to her, like she’d seen her at least once or twice a long time ago. She couldn’t imagine her having done anything wrong or any act that would anger someone enough to order her death.

Toman doesn’t kill. Toman doesn’t do real crime, she thought.

But times had changed, and maybe they did do real crime now. She wondered briefly if Mitsuya was still part of Toman. What had become of Mikey and Draken, and the rest?

Did Kaksi know what Toman had become over the years?

Kumi unconsciously reached for her phone beside her to call, then caught herself. She hesitated for a moment, letting the sudden wash of anxiety run through her, then shut off the television instead and returned to her reading.

Let sleeping dogs lie, she thought, and she spent the rest of her night, minding her own business, minding her future.

---

She wouldn’t have broken if not for her dream that night.

“Bambi, you don’t ever stop crying, do you?”

Kumi’s eyes jolted open at the sound of that voice, the mischievous laugh she remembered from her childhood, even if it was richer, an evolved version. It couldn’t be, could it?

But she was no longer in her room. Instead, she was somewhere warm and blindingly bright, where her eyes could barely adjust, and her body felt… lighter?

She rose to a sitting position, shielding her watering eyes from the light, only to be startled by a warm hand taking hers, interlacing their fingers.

“Kumi-chan, look.”

Her eyes opened again, and this time, rather than light unfocusing her, there was a man before her, with a face that was foreign yet oh-so-familiar, crouched down on one knee and still holding her hand gently.

Fangs grinned back at her, and she gasped.

“K-Kei..?”

Her voice came out no more than a squeak and suddenly in her heart she was fourteen again, and her lip started to quiver as she repeated his name again.

What did this mean? To be looking at him again, a him that was no longer dead just days before he turned fifteen, whose dark, wavy locks were even longer and whose face had aged just as much as hers, but with the same fox-like brown eyes that she’d fallen in love with a decade ago as part of a sharper angled, handsome face?

She repeated his name yet again, heart thumping and tears welling up in her eyes, and he cupped her face in her hands, using his thumbs to wipe away her tears.

He frowned.

“I didn’t mean to make you sad,” he said, a pensive look on his face. He sighed, and Kumi felt his lips press onto her forehead. Warm, soft lips that felt every bit as real as she did, and it only made her hurt more.

She was hallucinating. All of this was impossible, whatever this was.

So why did it feel so real?

“I miss you so much,” she choked out.

A decade had passed, and here she was. Conjuring up an image of Baji as he could have been if he had lived, something that may not be real. She wasn’t even sure he’d look like this - might he have cut his hair, or gotten his teeth fixed? How did she know what his voice would settle to be like in adulthood, and if this soothing baritone in her ears was anything close? How did she know he would grow to this height he now stood at, towering over her once he’d pulled her to her feet and pressed her head against his chest? How did she know what his arms would feel like wrapped around her? Would she actually have felt this safe and warm?

Would he have still cared for her, had he lived?

“I miss you too.”

She sobbed harder.

“How can you miss me when you’re dead?”

He paused, and let a hand stroke through her hair.

“Pretend.”

Almost shocked, she pulled back and looked up at him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He smiled sadly at her and shrugged.

“Pretend I’m still here with you. I’ll stay with you till morning comes,” he promised. "I can promise you at least this much.”

There’s a point where it’s easier to live in the delusion, and it was at this point, where Baji leaned in to kiss her, then embrace her in a way they never could in life. They drank deeply of each other throughout the night, connecting with each other physically and emotionally, and the young woman hoped that the cursed morning would never come, where she’d have to give up on this dream or vision or delusion or whatever the fuck it was, and return to reality.

But alas the dead cannot commune with the living forever.

Kumi woke up in a cold bed where Baji was no longer inside her or beside her or with her, and there was nothing that remained but messy bed sheets, dampness between her legs and unrelenting, fresh pain in her heart.

She brought her knees to her chest, and felt new anguish for the first time in years. Birds chirped outside her window to welcome the dawn and light seeped through her window, and on this cool Saturday morning, she had regressed to the same child curled up in blankets, encountering heartbreak for the first time.

Why?

Why couldn’t she get past this?

Her father had said it first. It’s just a boy.

And here she was, a grown woman, who no longer could love, hanging on desperately to a ghost.

Kumi’s phone alarm went off suddenly - she’d forgotten to turn it off - and she reached for her phone, her whole body shaking like a leaf. She was pathetic, despite the fact that she so desperately wanted to be strong.

And thus, the moment she quieted the alarm, she dialed the only person who could understand the pain she felt. Even if it was selfish. Even if it had been a decade.

She didn’t expect her to pick up, but she did.

“Kumi?”

The familiar sound of Kaksi’s voice made her want to weep in a different way. Relief rushing over a wave.

She sucked air into her lungs and smiled, warm, thankful tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Kaksi, I missed you so much.”

#baji x oc #kazutora x oc #tokyorev #off target effects #collab fic #mae.writing #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers imagine #tokyo revengers #longfic

[thedumpsterqueen]

Standards of Performance, Chapter 8: Heartbreak and Lattes

From the Beginning,  Previous Chapter

AO3 Link

Only announcement for this week: I've started a new job, and my schedule is such that a weekly update is unlikely without the quality being verrrry questionable. Therefore, I've decided to move off a set schedule, but I PROMISE I will update at least twice a month. Thank you for your patience and understanding; I know a set schedule is preferable but I wanna make sure this doesn't go to shit. Also... apparently this isn’t showing up in the tags I use, which sucks - so reblogs help a lot if you’re able. I love you guys <3

Summary: You’re the BAU’s newest intern, desperate to prove yourself amongst an established team of much more experienced profilers. Agent Hotchner, the seemingly infallible team leader, sets strict expectations for your performance. He commands your respect without even trying, but is there something more to your relationship than a simple desire to impress your stony-faced boss?

Chapter Summary:  In which decisions are made and overturned and many cups of coffee are drunk.

Words: 2666

Rating: Explicit, 18+. Warnings on AO3.

Pairings: Hotch x Reader, Hotch x You

You were sulking.

Not enough to affect your work - you’d have to go through something much worse than heartbreak before you risked your internship. But your home life was beginning to resemble a timelapse straight out of an overdramatic teen movie wherein the protagonist’s crush asks someone else to prom. Your apartment was a pile of half-done laundry, takeout containers, and case files; your evenings filled with sad Spotify playlists and too much red wine. 

And work? Not much better. Seeing him stride into the office every morning, filled with power and purpose and completely oblivious to the fact that he had shoved your heart into a metaphorical blender with a simple response to a seemingly innocuous question was really starting to wear you down. You had been so sure, that was the thing - so convinced by the team’s reaction to your story that it had all meant something. And maybe it had. But he had looked you in the face and told you it didn’t, so that was the answer that mattered.

So maybe sulking was the wrong word. ‘Spiraling’ was more accurate. A controlled spiral, mitigated only by the fact that 1. you had appearances and responsibilities to maintain and 2. Aaron Hotchner wasn’t actually the reason you showed up to work every morning, despite what it had seemed lately.

And it had seemed like that. You remembered getting the phone call that you had been accepted for an interview for the BAU internship, and the phone call that you made it to the final round, and finally the phone call that you had gotten the position - each more exciting than the last. You remembered meeting him, shaking his hand, completely oblivious to how much he was about to fuck up your life. Even when you first started to feel something for him, you convinced yourself it was nothing - a harmless crush wrought from your veneration and respect for one of the best in the field. Someone you admired. Someone you wanted to be one day. But then he’d made the unfortunate move of revealing bits and pieces of himself to you, exposing tiny slivers of humanity and emotion you were convinced didn’t exist, until you realized he was a person, an incredible one, and it wasn’t just admiration you felt anymore. It took all of a few months and a handful of genuine conversations until you were this far gone, and after he made it clear that your pining was one-sided, you knew you had to stop your fall there. 

So you tried.

You kept your conversations strictly professional. Avoided driving with him or sitting next to him on flights whenever possible. Disallowed yourself lingering glances. But it was still too goddamn much. He was still too goddamn much.

The next case pushed you over the edge. It was bad (not just normal bad, BAU bad), and it was no one’s fault, not really. You got called in late, the evidence was shoddy at best, and when all was said and done, you caught the unsub, but only after he’d killed 4 women. The last one died moments before you arrived and apprehended the killer, and despite the delay of those few minutes being, again, no one’s fault, the team was at each other’s throats the whole trip home. 

You were slouched in the corner of the plane trying to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. Morgan and Reid were sniping viciously about something completely unrelated to the case, because despite everything they’d just endured, they would never outright blame each other for what went wrong. Hotch, deciding he’d heard enough, raised his head slightly and said quietly,

“They’re not always going to end the way we want. We did all we could.”

And you were just done. You couldn’t stand to be around this pillar of strength and compassion and resolve. You needed to hate him for rejecting you, and you couldn’t. So you marched over to his seat, and, steeling yourself, you said what you’d been wanting to say since he broke your heart:

“I need a day off.”

It had sounded more dramatic in your head.

“A day off?”

You nodded. Hotch gathered himself, seeming to realize that such a request wasn’t unheard of (though perhaps in his department it essentially was) and nodded. 

“This case was difficult. I wish I could say exceptionally so. Get me your paperwork by tonight and take tomorrow off.”

You went back to your seat, relief overshadowed by disgust that it wasn’t, in fact, the 4 deaths you’d just been privy to that had broken you - it was the crush on your boss. You’d handled this case like a champ, in fact, because you were so absorbed in self-pity that you couldn’t feel anything else.

You needed to fucking recalibrate.

***

You were determined to make the next 24 hours the most self-indulgent, healing 24 hours you’d ever experienced. Quiet breakfast at a cafe? Planned. Self-improvement books? Downloaded. Vibrator? Fully charged. 

No man was going to keep you from focusing on the internship you’d been gunning for for years. No man was worth that. You were going to cry, you were going to journal, you were going to masturbate, and you were going to get him out of your head.

You were going to march into the quaint little coffeeshop two blocks away that you’d Googled last night, you were going to order the cinnamon spice latte that an indie food blog had called “the epitome of fall,” and you were going to go for a nice, early morning walk.

Except you weren’t. 

Because the next morning, when you turned to leave after grabbing your drink from the barista, you saw Hotch sitting at the table by the window. And Hotch saw you. And you weren’t equipped to handle this situation, because you were only 4 pages into your self-help book so far and honestly, the smile that lit up his face when you made eye contact would’ve broken you even if you’d read all the ‘how to move on’ manuals the literary world had ever produced.

So you obeyed his beckoning hand and sat down. 

“Thought you’d be up to something much more exciting on your one day off.”

You smiled wryly. “This is exciting. I haven’t had coffee that wasn’t made out of an ancient breakroom pot or a hotel carafe in months.”

Hotch chuckled. “I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake by coming here. Breakroom coffee is going to be impossible to tolerate now.”

“That good, huh?”

“Better. Try it.”

His eyes on you, you took a sip of your latte, and swallowed the most delicious concoction you’ve ever tasted in your life.

“Holy shit.”

“Indeed,” Hotch confirmed, ignoring your vulgarity. “I’ve been coming here before work for years.”

“I hope you don’t mind if I impose on your hangout,” you laughed. “I haven’t tried many coffee shops around here, but I imagine this is hard to beat.”

“Not at all. But just know - this is my table.”

You grinned. “Understood.”

You still went on that walk. Still read that book. Still spent the day trying to think about anything else but the softness of that moment - you and Hotch sipping lattes, bathed in the light of the early morning sun.

But on Thursday, the next day, bright and early, you found yourself at that coffee shop again. This time, you took a seat at the table adjacent to his. He looked up and smiled.

“Glad you heeded my advice.”

You smiled back and gestured to the heaping pile of files in front of him. “Not like there’d be much room for me anyways.”

You finished your coffees in relative silence and left at the same time for the office.

Friday, you learned Hotch’s coffee order: flat white with an extra shot of espresso. 

Saturday, you happened to arrive before he did, so you ordered his drink and set it on his table. Ten minutes passed and you thought he wasn’t going to show up, but he soon bustled in looking frantic. You waved him over, and he smiled when he saw the coffee waiting for him.

“Sorry, got stuck on a phone call,” he apologized. Like you were expecting him. Like this was something you guys did now.

You supposed it was.

Sunday, you got called for a case before you even made it to the coffee shop. You sat down in the conference room at 6 am, groggy as all hell. Hotch entered after you and handed you a mug, saying nothing before moving to address the team.

There was a small sticky note attached to the mug that read, “It’s no cinnamon spice latte, but it’s caffeine just the same.”

You fought to keep a grin from splitting your face, and ignored the team’s knowing smirks.

The case was in a small town in Colorado. The motel the team was staying in was less than ideal because of the location - bare bones, broken heaters, probably had the same bedsheets since its opening over 50 years ago. There was a small coffee pot in your room, and after you arrived Sunday evening, you walked down the street to the small convenience store and bought a bag of ground coffee.

When you handed him the cup Monday morning, he looked at it like it was salvation itself. Which, judging by the dark circles under his eyes, it may well have been.

“Long night?” you asked, loading into the back of the SUV. 

“Always,” he responded from the front seat. He took a sip of the coffee. “I don’t mean to offend, but this is terrible.”

You gasped in mock indignation. “I’ll have you know that is genuine Folgers pre-ground gas station coffee.”

“It tastes like it was made in a toilet,” he grumbled. He took another sip and smirked at you in the rearview mirror.

You’d long stopped trying to get over him.

 After the case in Colorado, the team was given a merciful break from the rapid-fire calls they’d been caught up in the last few months. 

You and Hotch continued your pre-work ritual, showing up to the coffee shop earlier and earlier each day. For you, it was a conscious attempt to spend more time with him. He didn’t acknowledge the extra 20 minutes that had worked its way into the morning routine, but you could only hope his intentions were the same.

One particularly chilly fall day, you burst in the door 10 minutes later than your unofficial meeting time. Hotch shot you a patented raised eyebrow as you unwrapped your scarf and took your seat. 

“Overslept?”

“No,” you retorted, “I was trying to make breakfast and my stove stopped working. Again. Maintenance can’t come fix it for two days.”

“Did you eat?” he asked.

“No, I was just gonna grab a muffin or something here.”

He nodded and went back to his laptop.

The next day, you sat down to a metal thermos on your table.

“What’s this?” you asked him.

“Oatmeal,” he responded without looking up. “You said your stove was broken.”

You opened the thermos to a puff of brown sugar-scented steam and the feeling that your heart was going to burst out of your chest.

“Thank you,” you whispered, afraid your voice would crack if you spoke any louder.

He looked over at you with an expression softer than you’d ever seen him wear. “You’re welcome.”

 A week later, you’d miraculously worked your way through the backed-up deluge of paperwork from the last few cases, and after clicking through the morning’s emails, you slammed your laptop shut.

“We should go for a walk,” you said to Hotch, who somehow still had a stack of files in front of him that was threatening to surpass the table’s weight capacity. 

“A walk?” Hotch asked, looking at the aforementioned files as if he were afraid they’d hear him considering the idea of a break.

“Yeah,” you responded. “Come on. It’s so pretty outside, and it’s gonna be too cold soon. Besides, we’re more caught up with work than we have been in months.”

“Speak for yourself,” he quipped, but he packed his briefcase just the same.

It really was beautiful outside. As soon as you stepped out the door, a gust of wind sent red and orange leaves skittering across the sidewalk at your feet. You wrapped your scarf tighter around your neck and motioned to the park across the street.

“Want to walk through the park?”

Hotch shrugged, a noncommittal ‘yes’, and followed you.

The park was sprawling, packed with massive trees in the midst of displaying their autumnal colors. Despite the early hour, there were joggers and dog-walkers populating the dirt path that meandered through. You strolled side by side, making idle chat about the weather and the holidays coming up, until you came to a bench set beside a pond in a small grove. Hotch took a seat and you followed his lead.

Reclining your head against the back of the bench, you exhaled. “This is the closest I’ve come to being out in nature in forever. I need to do this more often.”

Hotch murmured his agreement. “I’d apologize for the lack of free time, but I’m afraid it only gets worse.”

“When you officially join the team, you mean?”

“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Assuming that’s something you’re interested in.”

“Of  course I am,” you said, “but I didn’t think it was really up to me.”

“It’s not - I give the final recommendation.”

“Better start buying you more coffees then,” you teased, looking over at him.

“Unfortunately, as Unit Chief, I have a responsibility not to accept bribery.” He smiled back.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. You studied his face - the stern curve of his brow, the carved structure of his jaw, the stress lines set in from decades of sleepless nights and unspeakable losses. Despite the increasing time you’d been spending in close proximity, you were mesmerized, as always, by the stormy intensity of his eyes meeting yours. You were close enough to smell his cologne, and you were reminded of the night in his apartment when he told you about his family. If you thought you’d fallen for him then, it was nothing compared to how you felt now, after starting each morning sitting beside him in the quiet peace of that downtown coffee shop.

“We should get going,” he murmured, not checking his watch, not shifting his gaze from yours. You nodded, not fully comprehending his words, feeling dazed at his nearness.

It was impossible to tell who made the first, imperceptible shift. All you knew is you scarcely had time to think before his hand was on your jaw, cradling the back of your head, bringing you to him. His mouth met yours and you closed your eyes instinctively, melting into his warm body beside you, fisting the front of his jacket in your hands.

You couldn’t remember ever having been kissed so decisively before. His fingers gripped into the base of your skull, his forehead nearly pressed against yours, and despite the chastity of your closed mouths, you whimpered into his. He stiffened at the sound and pulled back, still holding you, inches away.

You saw the shift in his eyes before he moved. It was as if he consciously closed some gate, walling himself off. His pupils, blown, started to retract to their normal size, frown returned, hand drew back. You watched, heart still racing, unable to speak as he turned to grab the briefcase sitting at his feet. Only then did he look back at you.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and if his low voice was meant to betray any hint of emotion, you didn’t hear it. 

He stood, walked around the back of the bench towards the path, and paused.

“I’ll see you at the office.”

You were too shell-shocked to reply.

#aaron hotchner x reader #hotch x you #aaron hotchner x y/n #aaron hotchner #Criminal Minds #standards of performance #hotch #hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner imagine #thomas gibson #criminal minds smut #criminal minds fanfiction #hotchner #spencer reid #mgg #david rossi #emily prentiss #jennifer jareau #derek morgan #fanfiction #writing #ao3

[covermeinclouds]

i don't really know what i've been up to, but here's a life update:

(not in order)

ate gi (tiger's sister) made spaghetti twice this month. ngayon lang ako nagka lakas ng loob mag request ng ulam. i usually just wait. her spaghetti is everything. most of her cooking is everything.

i bought books a couple of weeks ako and the ones i ordered arrived a couple days ago. i bought the invisible life of addue larue, aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe, the starless sea, and the cruel prince.

i just finished reading diary of an oxygen thief just a couple days ago. i put down for 2 months because of how bored i got. and yeah, i hated it.

i haven't watched any new movies lately. some out of boredom and just to past the time. not because i wanted to see a new movie.

i started watching seinfeld but didn't enjoy the first 10 episodes so i stopped watching it

i'm on season 2 of 'you'. watching it with tiger. joe goldberg just triggers me cause he reminds me of my ex. maybe my ex could have killed me if he wanted to. i don't know.

got a sweater from brandy melville last week. it's the 'tate' sweater. the one going all around tiktok. i hate that i gave in. but i love having it.

gave tiger a taylor swift crash course one day and he listened and maybe enjoyed it? i can never tell. he did like my tears ricochet. thought it hurt like hell.

downloaded dune but can't bring myself to watch it yet.

had that interview with scout about y2k fashion and why it's such a trend. i remember feeling nervous as hell during it even if it only lasted 15 minutes. (i talked a lot)

i thought i did so badly in that interview. but when i watched it, it wasn't so bad

i went thrifting a couple of days ago. it helped. i felt i had some peace. felt like meditation to me.

been talking to cath a lot about life again lately. and realized that there were things we couldn't tell other people but told each other because we experienced the same pain together. that's how i know we'd do anything for each other. that's how i know she's more than just a best friend to me. i'd die for her. she's family.

been on tiktok more lately. instagram is just there for photos but i don't want to care so much for instagram.

been thinking a lot again about where i come from and who i am. i don't get heavy breakdowns anymore. not lately, at least. i just get sad. and i don't push it away anymore. i let it sit as long as it wants and as long as i let it.

but everything is closed once my shift starts and i turn into a completely different person when working.

a tiktok i took got around 13k views. i hated that tiktok and meant to do it again. tiger laughed at me for it. it was funny.

i watched downsizing. i didnt enjoy it as much as i thought i would

i watched the little rascals. i liked it a lot.

i watched ladybugs. i didnt like the sexist jokes.

i just finished aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe. i finished it while it rained really hard. i get why people read when it rains now.

#pers

[takoyakitenchou]

masquerade ch.8

7? idk but this one isn’t on ff or ao3 yet i think

12:58 PM Nakiri Erina: Hi, it’s been a while. Are you free the day after tomorrow?

1:03 PM Yukihira Souma: how’d u get this #?

1:04 PM Nakiri Erina: Alice gave it to me. 

1:04 PM Yukihira Souma: sup

1:05 PM Nakiri Erina: I’m opening Kiralyno Haza. It’s not like I want you to show up or anything.

message opened

1:37 PM Nakiri Erina: Hello?

2:40 PM Yukihira Souma: hey sorry i just got on break. congrats nakiri!

2:41 PM Nakiri Erina: It was expected.

2:41 PM Yukihira Souma: surprised it took you so long to open. hurry up and get your 3 stars bubs then we’ll really see who’s the better chef

2:41 PM Yukihira Souma: and did you get tired of shinomiya or did he get tired of you?

2:42 PM Nakiri Erina: I got tired of him. Duh. Are you not coming?

2:42 PM Yukihira Souma: save 4 seats for me. i’ll be a balloon by the time im done w your food also i hope you have enough ingredients for a shokugeki after

“Ugh. You’re as shit at texting as ever,” Erina groaned, throwing down her phone, but then she picked it up again to stare at those four particular characters. Bubs. God, it had been so long since she’d seen that in her messages.

(under the cut to see souma and erina start to get their shit together lol)

To think that she had been the one to break the radio silence between them — good lord, that was fucking annoying. It was weird to think about. There had been plenty of opportunities for them to talk again, and yet they’d somehow managed to evade each other since they’d run into each other at Nakiri Mansion. Whether this was coincidence she had no idea, but Souma hadn’t been at the official Totsuki-sponsored 92nd gen alumni reunion, and Shinomiya had dragged Erina to some culinary conference that made her miss the freshman training camp where Souma threatened the living shits out of the poor first years but ended up not cutting anybody from the roster.

Erina had done her best not to linger on the fact that she had had to ask Alice for Souma’s new number, but goddamn would that remain at the forefront of her mind for the week following Kiralyno Haza’s debut until she got frustrated enough to the point where she damn near chucked her own phone out the window.

It was thanks to Alice that her condo was still in one piece.

The COO of the Nakiri-Totsuki Group was sitting next to her at a bar in Budapest, helping herself to her third shot of tequila, a few empty glasses and a growing tab between them. “Yukihira’s coming?”

Erina nodded, smiling despite herself. “Yeah. I guess he is.”

Taking sudden interest in her drink, Alice remained silent for a thoughtful moment before she said, “I haven’t seen you this happy since you two broke up.”

With a half-hearted huff, Erina scoffed, “Yeah, right.”

Alice gave her a long look. “I’m not kidding, Erina. Who was that other guy you were seeing? Darren?”

“Aaron. Darren was before him.”

“Doesn’t he have a 3000-seater concert hall named after him?”

“I couldn’t care less.” Erina said, and Alice knew it was 593% true. 

Whenever tolerating a guy got tedious, Erina had extinguished whatever spark he thought he had ignited, pretended to be hung up on it, and started over, systematically breaking hearts left and right, all the while building titanium defenses around her own.

And then, a year and half ago, she’d seen Yukihira Souma at Nakiri Mansion, and everything had changed. 

So. Much. Pining. Alice was more than a few years past sick of how long those two idiots were dragging their shit out.

Erina picked up her belongings. “We should probably stop day-drinking.”

“Sure,” Alice said, paying the tab before Erina could get her wallet out.

“I’ll pay you back for that,” Erina promised as they left the bar.

Alice put a hand on Erina’s shoulder. “You can pay me back by not fucking up your confession again.”

At this, Erina frowned. A withering counter should’ve been second nature, but she found herself incapable. She wanted to believe that whatever piece of her heart that had clung to the hope that Yukihira Souma would come back to her was nothing more than a memory. More than anything, she wished the voice at the back of her head telling her to move on and forget him and their past would finally win out, because there were people in her present waiting for her, and it would be a sin to ignore that.

But she couldn’t say the words; her heart belonged to Yukihira Souma — would always belong to him — and all broken promises and relationships notwithstanding, that was something she could not deny.

-

Although Souma technically hadn’t been invited to the kitchen for shift drinks when the front doors closed, he had taken the liberty of bringing a bottle of cab sauv that he and Erina finished in like ten seconds flat, to hell with sharing with staff, family, and friends.

The second she felt the words wanna come over? slip out of her atmosphere-drunk mouth, she knew it was going to take more self-control than she had not to demand he stay with her forever. 

“So, Yukihira,” she said like they hadn’t been catching up for the last two hours when they were sitting on the couch in her living room with pinot noir. “How’ve you been?”

The corners of Souma’s lips twitched. “Not bad,” he replied. “Mostly cooking. A few interviews and shit. I’ve been keeping up with all your stuff, by the way. Three tastings in twelve hours next Monday seems like too much, Nakiri.”

Erina frowned. “Even if you were as talented a stalker as Mimasaka Subaru, how the fuck would you know that?”

He held up his phone. “You were signed into my calendar app when I last downloaded a backup copy four years ago. So every time I get a new phone, I transfer all the old data.”

Erina stared at him, horrified. “Holy shit. You’ve seen everything?”

Shrugging, Souma said, “Not everything. Just… your dates with Darren. And Aaron. Also, I knew about Kiralyno opening before you texted me so I’d already cleared out my schedule by then.”

Erina had stopped listening halfway through. “Wait, Yukihira…”

“It’s okay, Nakiri.” Souma waved it off. “You’re here with me now. All that matters. Let’s not look too far into our past, yeah?”

“Don’t look into my future either, idiot! Sign out of my Google calendar right now!”

Souma shook his head seriously. “Sorry, Nakiri, I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Why the fuck not?”

He gazed at her intently and rested his chin on his fist. “I need to make sure I’ll still be in it.”

Erina rolled her eyes. “Don’t say sappy shit like that. It doesn’t suit you.”

“What if I just stayed?” he asked.

She sighed. “I think the question is, would I even let you? I thought we’re putting the past behind us? Don’t you want this back?” She pointed at the white cloth she was wearing on her wrist. His white cloth.

Souma ignored the second question and pulled Erina to him by her waist, close enough that she could feel his warm breath as he spoke, forehead brushing hers. “Another thing we both know is that you and I could never be just friends.”

“Take your hands off me or I swear I’m either going to spill my wine or kiss you, and I seriously do not care which.”

He leaned back with a sad smile. “You wouldn’t let me stay, would you, Nakiri?”

“I couldn’t,” she said helplessly. “We don’t even know where our lines are.”

“Do we need lines?” Souma asked, finishing his glass and balancing it on his knee. “You and I are beyond this dimension.”

Erina stared at him, memorizing every last square centimeter of his features — the way his hair seemed to get shorter every time they met until he somewhat resembled someone of his culinary pedigree; the way the creases formed on his sleeves along the contours of his toned arms.

“You know, Nakiri, if you let me stay, you wouldn’t have to stare so much.”

She tore her gaze from his collarbone, her whole face turning red. In all her twenty-one years, that had to be the most embarrassing moment of her life. “Shut up! I’m not staring!”

He was watching her with wistful eyes. “I wouldn’t mind if you were…” 

And they both heard it.

I wouldn’t mind if you were mine.

#shokugeki no soma #shokugeki no souma #sorina #soueri #yukihira soma #yukihira souma #nakiri erina #CANT BELIEVE THEYRE FINALLY GETTING THEIR SHIT TOGETHER #oh wait #im the one writing this

[writing-is-my-guilty-pleasure]

Rising Star || Tony Stark x Reader

Main Masterlist

Marvel Masterlist

You were Y/N Y/L/N, a rising star in the music world. You hadn’t started off well known at all, you studied music in school and college, then gone on to sing on city streets for fun in your spare time. But you didn’t stay hidden for long, because somewhere along the line someone had uploaded a video to YouTube of you singing, and it had gone viral. The next time you went on twitter your phone actually crashed from the amount of people that had been tweeting you, and messaging you, and it didn’t take too long after that for your now producer to get in touch with you.

When you released your first single, the amount of people who were buying, downloading and streaming your song was enough to keep you at the top of the charts for a week and a half. Everyone loved it, and it was even enough to get other people to notice you. You’d learn later in life that Peter Parker was a fan of your music, and that’s really where all the excitement began.

You’d been booked in for an interview by your producer, so that your fans could know more about you and what you liked. You’d been given a piece of white cardboard, with little bits of paper that you could pull off, to see what was written underneath.

“And this one says…” You paused as you pulled a piece of paper off. “Who is Y/N Y/L/N’s favourite Avenger?” You grinned at the question, and laughed at the camera. “You can’t just ask a question like that, all the Avengers are amazing and they all do an amazing job.” You thought for a moment. “But honestly, I think Iron Man has to be my favourite.” You laughed again as the crew behind the cameras chuckled at your answer. “I love Tony Stark, I have to admit that.” You smiled. “I really respect Tony, how he deals with the press, and how he balances his work life. I’ve admired him for a while, as he seems like a really nice guy, and the Avengers deal with a lot, with the whole saving the world thing.” You glanced back down at the question. “But I doubt I’d ever get to meet him, but at least now everyone knows I love Tony Stark!” You smiled at the camera, and moved onto the next question.

                                      •·················•·················•

After that interview, and many months later you released even more music, and you were slowly getting recognised around the world, as more people shared your songs. You’d even met some of your favourite artists, and you didn’t think your life would get better than this, because this was more than what you’d dreamed of.

Or so you thought, until it had been a year since you released your first song, and to celebrate your producer had thrown a (very) big, formal party to honour the start of your career. There were more than a few recognisable faces there, and you had been overwhelmed for most of the night, greeting so many of your idols, them congratulating you and complimenting you on your music and achievements.

Eventually, you managed to get away from the bigger part of the crowd, and stand next to one of the many small tables that littered the room that held various expensive drinks. You sighed, reaching for one of the less alcoholic drinks on the table, and had just taken a sip when you heard: 

“It feels good to get away from the crowd occasionally, doesn’t it?”

There was something very familiar about that voice, so you turned around, about to agree with the mysterious person, but upon seeing them you froze where you stood, almost dropping your drink. There before you, that familiar smirk on his face, stood Tony Stark himself.

“Oh my god.” You whispered, putting a hand over your mouth, staring in utter disbelief at Tony. “You’re Tony Stark!” You said a little bit louder, your voice a little bit higher this time. “Oh my god!” You put your drink down as Tony laughed, and you gaped at him, but it was quickly overtaken by the biggest smile that had ever appeared on your face.

“And you must be Y/N.” Tony replied, repositioning his sunglasses that he seemed to never take off. “I’ve heard a lot about you, but none of the videos show how beautiful you are.” His smirk grew as you turned a bright red, looking down shyly.

“It’s…I’m so-” You stuttered, your mind in ruins because holy shit did Tony Stark just call you beautiful? Tony chuckled as you tried to find the right words. “It’s so amazing to meet you, I’ve always dreamed of meeting you and that sounds weird but I didn’t mean it to be weird, and I promise I’m a lot cooler than this normally.” You said in a rush, feeling utterly stupid. “How did you even get here?” You asked, taking another sip of your drink, gesturing for Tony to take one if he wanted.

“Well, I have an apprentice of sorts back home, as you may well know since you love me so much.” Tony winked at you as he took a larger sip of his drink. “And he brought you to my attention not too long ago, as he is definitely one of your biggest fans.” At your amazed look, he grinned. “Seriously, he won’t stop talking about your music, and this time I relented and let him fangirl about you to no end, until he showed me this video of you doing an interview.” He pulled out his phone to show you the video where you admitted you were obsessed with Tony. “And I knew that I had to find you somehow, so I got in touch with your producer, and he invited me here without telling you.” Tony looked at you over his glass, amusement twinkling in his eyes.

“You wanted to meet me that much?” You asked, in awe of the man standing infront of you. “I don’t think someone’s wanted to meet me that badly before.” You smiled shyly at Tony, and you felt a warm fuzzy feeling inside everytime he smiled back at you. You looked around, and nobody seemed to be looking in your general direction, so an idea floated into your head. “Do you want to…I don’t know, get away from the noise a bit?” You gestured in the direction of the balcony.

“I would love to.” Tony replied, before holding out his arm for you to take. You laughed, and held onto his arm as he led you outside, where the cool air felt lovely on your flushed skin, and the lights from the busy city below shone onto your face. You looked over at Tony to find him already looking at you. 

“What? Is there something on my face?” You chuckled, reaching up to pat your cheek nervously.

“Can’t I just look at a pretty girl once in a while?” Tony teased, and you jokingly rolled your eyes, giggling. You never giggle, how has this man managed to turn you into the dumbest person alive? “I want to get to know you more, Y/N.” Tony spoke seriously, shifting a little on his feet, and you tucked a loose piece of hair behind your ear nervously. “And I know you’re busy with your music, but I would really like to take you out sometime.”

“You want to take me on a date?” You asked, staring in disbelief, and Tony nodded casually, as though he’d asked you something extremely simple, like what your favourite colour was.

“I just think that you and I get along well, and why prevent something that is obviously a good idea and that could work?” Tony shrugged, tilting his head as he looked at you. “So what do you say, Y/N? Give me a chance to sweep you off your feet, maybe literally a couple of times.” He spread his arms open, one of his signature poses.

“Hmm, I don’t know.” You said teasingly, moving towards him slightly. “Is a genius, billionaire, playboy, and philanthropist enough for someone like me?” You pulled a thoughtful face, as one of Tony’s hands crept up your back, pulling you closer to him. “I think I can give it a try.” Tony flashed you a winning smile, and pressed a quick kiss to your cheek.

Tony reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “Here’s my number, but don’t worry, I’m not leaving you just yet.” You tucked the paper into your bag, and that night was the happiest you’d been in a while. 

                                       •·················•·················•

But obviously when Tony left and you were in your room alone you had to scream into your pillow because oh my god Tony Stark is into you and you’re going on a date with him. And he was right, you two did make it work.

#tony stark #tony stark imagines #tony stark x reader #iron man #iron man x reader #marvel #marvel imagines #marvel x reader #avengers imagines #avengers x reader

[saltandburnsis]

wendigo, pt. 1

Characters: Reader, Dean, Sam, Ranger

Age: 20

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1,506

Summary: With nothing to show from their week’s stay in Stanford after Jessica’s death, the Winchesters move on to Black Water Ridge in search of their father.

A/N: y’all the fact that they changed the name of the town from Blackbottle Ridge to Black Water Ridge has been so frustrating. The “‘Blackwater?’ “No, Blackbottle” dialogue I put in the last part of the pilot was a joke for myself because I could not keep the name straight and now they’re just going to change it on me?? Insane. Also, as always, all dialogue taken from the show will be in italics.

~ ~ ~ ~

Sam woke up with a start, bolting upright in the passenger seat. Dean looked to him a few times, watching his movements as Sam tried to shake off whatever had scared him so.

“You okay?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Sam replied, brow furrowed as he played off his sudden waking. You looked to him from your spot in the back.

“Was it another nightmare?” you asked. Sam cleared his throat but, unsurprisingly, didn’t answer. They’d been happening so frequently since that night, but Sam refused to talk about them.

“Wanna drive for a while?” Dean looked to his younger brother. Sam chuckled in response, shocked.

“Dean, in your whole life, you’ve never once asked me that.”

“Yeah, me neither,” you agreed, leaning forward and resting your arms on the seat in front of you.

“Just thought you might want to. Never mind,” Dean replied to Sam. “And, Y/N, you’re never driving Baby again after what happened.”

“God, you crash a car into a house one time,” you replied, sitting back in your seat. This seemed to lighten the mood enough to take Sam out of his head.

“Look, guys, you’re worried about me. I get it and thank you, but I’m perfectly okay.” Dean only hummed in response. Quick to change the subject, Sam spoke again, grabbing the map as he did: “Alright, where are we?”

“We are just outside of Grand Junction,” Dean replied. Sam looked over the map for a few minutes before taking a deep breath.

“You know what? Maybe we shouldn’t have left Stanford so soon,” he mused. Dean shut his eyes for a moment, and you leaned forward again to look at Sam.

“Sam, we dug around there for a week. We came up with nothing. If you want to find the thing that killed Jessica-”

“Gotta find Dad first,” he interrupted, finishing your thought.

“Dad disappearing, and this thing showing up again after twenty years? It’s no coincidence. Dad’ll have answers. He’ll know what to do,” Dean reminded Sam. The same words he’d used to convince Sam to leave Stanford in the first place. Sam tried to change the subject again.

“It’s weird, man. These coordinates he left us, this Black Water Ridge…” Sam trailed off, looking at the map again.

“What about it?” Dean asked, glancing over at the map.

“There’s nothing there. It’s just woods.” Sam lowered the map and looked out the windshield, confusion clear on his face. “Why’s he sending us to the middle of nowhere?”

——————-

You looked around the ranger station with Dean while the three of you waited for the ranger. Sam was at the terrain model of the woods, looking at the entirety of the area.

“So, Black Water Ridge is pretty remote. It’s cut off by these canyons here—rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place,” he explained to you and Dean. His words fell on deaf ears, however, as you and Dean were too preoccupied with looking at the pictures on the wall.

“Dude, check out the size of this friggin’ bear,” Dean called the two of you over. You walked over with Sam and shrugged when you saw the bear.

“…and a dozen or more grizzlies in the area,” Sam concluded his summary of the area.

“I’ve seen bigger than that. I fought a werewolf twice that size a few months ago before I met back up with you and Dad in Des Moines. I could take that thing on no problem,” you scoffed. Dean smiled proudly, but Sam furrowed his brow. He knew how invested you were in this life, how much you’d always been, but he couldn’t help feeling a bit overprotective of his kid sister. You’d been out facing monstrous werewolves three times your size without any help during his absence?

“It’s no nature hike, that’s for sure,” he said, shaking his head. The three of you were interrupted by the ranger’s entrance.

“You three aren’t planning to go out near Black Water Ridge, by any chance?” he asked. The three of you turned to face him.

“Oh, no, sir. We’re environmental-study majors from U.C. Boulder. Just working on a paper,” Sam answered. Dean fist-bumped the air.

“Recycle, man,” he added.

“Bull. You’re friends with that Hailey girl, right?” The Ranger moved to stand behind his desk. You stepped out from behind Sam and Dean, nodding.

“Yes. Yes, we are, Ranger…Wilkinson,” you answered, leaning in slightly to make out the name on his badge. He set his coffee mug down.

“Well, I will tell you exactly what I told her. Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn’t be back from Black Water until the 24th. So, it’s not exactly a missing persons now, is it?” Dean shook his head. “Tell that girl to quit worrying. I’m sure her brother’s just fine,” Ranger Wilkinson finished, stepping away from his desk again.

“We will,” Dean stated with a nod. “Well, that Hailey girl’s quite a pistol, huh?” He chuckled.

“That is putting it lightly,” the ranger replied with a shake of his head.

“Actually, you know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. You know, so she could see her brother’s return date,” Dean suggested. Ranger Wilkinson looked down for a moment then nodded.

——-

“Yeah!” Dean laughed victoriously as he led you and Sam to the back of the car.

“What? Are you cruising to hookup or something?” you asked. Dean looked to you.

“What do you mean?”

“The coordinates point to Black Water Ridge. So, what are we waiting for?”

“She’s right, Dean,” Sam agreed. “Let’s just go find Dad. I mean, why even talk to this girl?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should know what we’re walking into before we actually walk into it,” Dean shot back defensively. He looked between you and Sam and shook his head.

“What?” Sam asked, clearly annoyed at this point.

“Since when are you two all ‘shoot first, ask questions later?’ anyway?”

“Since now,” Sam quipped, getting into the car with a slam of the door. Dean turned to you before you could follow suit.

“You know, you’re the one who said we were friends with this girl. Now you’re mad it got us some information?”

“Yeah, the wrong information. How was I supposed to know that girl wasn’t a victim going in?” you sighed. “If Dad’s here in those woods, he could fill us in on what we need to know. Making all these other stops, interviewing people Dad probably already got to…it’s just more time spent not looking for him.” With that, you slid into the backseat before Dean could answer.

———-

You opted out of going to the girl’s house, choosing instead to stay back and do some more research of your own. If you weren’t going right into the woods, you might as well look further into all this while you could. Besides, Hailey didn’t need two strangers at her door during all this, let alone three. However, this left you up to analyzing the video Dean and Sam collected while at her house. You met back up with Dean and Sam at a local dive-bar to share your findings.

“So, Black Water Ridge doesn’t get a lot of traffic. Local campers mostly, but, still, this past April, two hikers went missing out there. They were never found,” you recanted, searching through the papers on the table before you.

“Any before that?” Dean asked.

“Yeah.” You finally found the old newspaper you’d printed and laid it on the table in front of your brothers. While they read, you got the laptop from the bag and turned it on. “In 1982, eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack. And, again, in 1959, and before that in 1936. Every 23 years, just like clockwork.

“Okay, watch this. Here’s the cincher. I downloaded the video Sam sent over. Watch this.” You spun the laptop to face them. “Here’s the clincher.  I downloaded the video Sam sent me. Watch this.” You pressed a key, playing a few frames of the footage. Sam and Dean leaned in closer to the laptop.

“Do it again,” Dean said. You complied, rewinding the tape then playing those three frames again.

“That’s three frames. It’s a fraction of a second. Whatever that thing is, it can move.” Sam’s eyes stayed locked on the screen as he spoke, reaching forward to play the clips once more. Dean hit Sam’s arm triumphantly.

“I told you something weird was going on here,” he said. You shook your head, shutting the laptop.

“Yeah, I got one more thing. In’59, one camper survived the supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid—barely crawled out of the woods alive.” You passed your last paper across the table for them to look over. Dean grabbed it first, and Sam looked on over his shoulder.

“Is there a name?” Dean asked.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

SPN rewrite taglist: @mrsfortune1306 @marvelous-glims

forever taglist: @griff1ndor @gothsatanicrapunzel @choosemyname @mersuperwholocked-lowlife @not-astounding @sassy-specter @vicmc624 @idksupernatural

#winchester sister #SISTER WINCHESTER #dean x sister!reader #sam x sister!reader #supernatural x reader #dean winchester #dean x reader #dean x sis #brother!dean #bro!dean #Sam Winchester #sam x reader #sam x sis #brother!sam #bro!Sam #winchester!sister #sister!reader #supernatural #supernatural imagines #supernatural imagine #supernatural series #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural rewrite #spn rewrite #spn x reader #insert fic #spn insert fic

[graphicabyss]

?人 NEWS

I wrote an enormous post, or rather an essay, concerning NEWS, Tegoshi, and everything that went through my mind in the past month. Honestly, it’s mostly my way of coping, getting it out of my system and sorting out my thoughts and feelings. But I decided to also post it here for those who might want to read.

It was a long time coming. The rumours were lurking around for years and a month ago they bloomed. And yet, the full realization is yet to dawn on me. When something devastating happens, our mind tends to shake off the pain by either exonerating the beloved person who hurt us, or blaming them and distancing away from them. It's really hard to stay objective. But I'll try.

Coming into this fandom, I prepared myself for disappointment. Once I was a TVXQ fan. You know, the 5-nin TVXQ that was going to be "together forever" and all that. So I wowed never to get that invested in a pop band. When NEWS came along, I tried not to get too attached. I knew it would hurt me, sooner of later. And for awhile, it worked. But, as years went by, I knew I lost the battle. We humans need to cling to something. Thus, nearly 7 years have passed.

To me, Tegoshi has always been a key component. He was the one that led me to NEWS. Or rather, how pretty he looked in a dress. Tegoshi always kept me interested. Sometimes he excited, sometimes he annoyed, but he was never ever boring. He was made of contradictions, both in words and in actions. Nothing ever adds up with him. He made me want to understand him but I could never quite grasp it. Thinking about it now, perhaps it was because he doesn't really understand himself either.

In these years, I had several crisis points where I considered leaving the fandom, all caused by something shitty Tegoshi said or did. But every time I bounced back. Of course, I didn't do it for him. I did it for myself. However, his selfishness has always been offset by his kindness. The last time was him crying at the end of Neverland tour and how sorry he looked. Till the end, I wanted to believe that his common sense and loyalty won't let him do something reckless and stupid. Yet, here we are. The interview he gave to Bunshun led me to believe that he would do the right thing. He said he would show his gratitude to JE and would definitely make his fans happy but now it's the furthest thing from the truth. The fandom is disappointed, confused, angry.

Some people say to get over it, that Tegoshi was meant to leave or some shit. But I think those people fundamentally misunderstand the heart of the problem. It's not that he left that infuriated the fandom. It's how and when he left. Most fans would support his decision to leave if the transition was done properly. He owed us that much. A proper apology. A proper gratitude. A proper farewell. The announcement had me in disbelief. I expected him to at least finish the contract, do the Story Tour, no matter how long it takes, and show the members, staff and the fans the respect they deserve. To cut it short feels like a violation. At the very least, we need a closure. The last goodbye. The last concert. The last something. He just left JE after 17 years like it was nothing.

More than anything, what he did seems so stupid. He had it so fucking good. He was always in the spotlight, both on stage and in TV shows. The other members did most of the offscreen work allowing him to shine. He was supported by endlessly patient members and staff. He had the freedom to choose and all the work he wanted for each of his passions - ItteQ, Soccer Earth, OpenRec. And he had fans that always supported him, no matter how many scandals he had.

What was so important that he had to give up on all the amazing benefits he had? To betray all this trust? And on top of it, at a time like this? When all world is going through so much shit? When the fans need moral support more than ever? What were the "dreams" that he talked about?

The ability to rant on Twitter? Making duckface selfies? Fucking around? Assembling a shitty rock band? Performing with strippers? Some kind of unique business opportunity? He talked for years about wanting to perform overseas or hosting fan events but right now these things are offlimit anyway. Why couldn't he at the very least explain his decision properly? Just that alone will definitely hurt his further career in the long run. The press-conference lasted 2 hours but it answered none of the questions that really mattered and there was no remorse. Though at this point, I can't trust anything he says anyway. He created his Twitter account the the evening it all went down and didn't bother explaining himself. He just jumped off the ship and let other people deal with the damage.

Even now, it all seems like some kind of bad dream. Then again, all of the 2020 does.

When I first saw "手越退社" trending on Twitter back in May I felt like I was spinning into a downward spiral, like all air was sucked out of me. And it wasn't the "oh, no! what will the band do?" I never went to a NEWS concert and never brought any merch. To me, it wasn't really the feelings of a fan whose band faces a crisis but rather that of an entrepreneur who invested too much money into one asset and watched it plummet.

Fandom stuff is a currency that can devalue in a blink of an eye. Its valuable as long as its core message is intact. This is why I can't stand people being petty over scans or videos. I share when I can knowing it will make someone happy because I know that tomorrow that someone might move on. When I stumble upon old closed journals with password-protected downloads they feel like ancient abandoned temples. The treasures in them turned to dust.

4nin NEWS were based on unity, the combination of 4 unique characters. Four components, each of them essential. Now that concept failed. It's like standing in front of a collapsed building. I try to assess the damage. How much of it can I salvage? Repurpose? How much is lost and needs to be cleaned up? Should I even bother?

What do I do with hundreds of live performances and TV shows, in HD, lovingly downloaded and stored?

What to make of thousands of scans, magazines, pamphlets, almost each image edited and sorted? Thousands more stored neatly in folders, waiting to be posted. Countless screens and gifs.

What of the member ai fanvideos that gained over 100k on Youtube bringing joy to so many people? I already got the first heartbroken comment saying "we won't ever see them like that again, will we?"

What to make of my unfinished stories? Honestly, it's one of the things I'm most proud in my entire life. Now their future is uncertain.

Do I take down the poster on my wall? The CDs on my shelf? Soon I will have to looks at my enormous stash and decide for each item. Things that once brought joy now cause pain.

NEWS weren't selling music, they were selling ideas and dreams. The cute band photos now cause hurt and anger. The uplifting songs about unity won't be convincing. All the concerts lost their charm.

Am I being too dramatic? Probably. Perhaps the issue itself may seem trivial to an outsider but our grief is real.

Tegoshi keeps saying he loves NEWS and adores the members. But to me, loving is doing everything you can to avoid hurting the ones you love. Perhaps he means it, but that love will never compare to the love he has for himself. Despite what he says, I doubt we'll even see them together again and I'm not even sure I want to. I knew apart from Koyashige, the members aren't really that close personally. Tegoshi is shallow and seeks popularity more than anything. I'm sure than now he'll hang out with even shadier characters than before. The members used to provide him with the much needed tough love. Now, with nothing and noone holding him back, he'll give in to his overblown ego.

I'm not sure how I feel about NEWS continuing as 3. I mean, I support their decision and that's probably what most fans want but to me, I don't know if it'll work out that well. They were already a band with a lot of luggage and now, just like in 2011, they are a band that induces pity. They would have to rearrange so much to try and fill this huge gaping hole. Not to mention they will struggle vocally. No songs, no choreography can be unaltered. It might be better to go on within the agency doing their own things. But then that would just mean Tegoshi was indispensable and all the work they put in will be wasted. The Story must be competed.

In the past week I went through various stages of grief. The anger was strong and so was disbelief. Now it's finally subsiding, giving way to acceptance. It won't come soon but I'll let all the emotions run their course. The fact is Tegoshi remains very entertaining and the temptation to keep following him and rant about him is strong. I probably wouldn't even fight it if he were to leave with at least a shred of dignity. But with the way things are, I refuse to support him in any way. And I will at least try to phase him out as much as I can as I realize that even my anger is playing into his hands as he wants nothing more than attention, good or bad. Instead, I'll try to focus on those who do deserve support.

I'm not yet sure how to proceed with the blog and everything else but I'll take my time and figure it out. The truth is Tegoshi was one of the two major things that have kept me here for so long. And no, the second reason is not Shige. It's the people. Out of all the fandoms I've been in over the years this one really felt like home. I met so many amazing people here, even though many of them have since moved on. I felt accepted and appreciated.

This week has been an emotional roller-coaster. But today I feel fine. I have a dozen reasons to be depressed. But I'm not miserable right now because of the fandom. I've had about 10 people write to me within several days. Some of them I haven't talked to in months, some I've never talked to before, and some from other fandoms. They reached out to share their thoughts and feelings, and I appreciate it so much. I felt less alone. I felt a sense of solidarity, a sisterhood. Many agreed with me and it was touching but even more touching were the people who didn't necessarily agree with me and still wanted to hear what I had to say.

Perhaps it's patronizing but I feel like right now the best I can do is stay connected and go through this together. If I can help others, through informing, making someone smile, or supporting emotionally, it's all worth it.

#musings

[creatively--challenged]

Thanks, Zoom | Harrison Osterfield x Fem!Reader

Summary: You and Harrison have been dating a while, though have yet to meet each other’s parents. You’re trying to plan the perfect way to introduce him to yours until Zoom does it for you. 

Words: 2K

Warnings: None, just pure fluff.

A/N: I apologise but I have been on a massive Harrison buzz lately. I just need him to be my boyfriend. Let me know what you think! Enjoy x

            You squeezed the tea bag against the side of your cup before removing it and adding a drop of milk, stirring it into your tea as you waited for your laptop to connect. You had it set up on the island in the kitchen, sunlight streamed through the overhead skylights and birdsongs drifted through the open back door while you waited for the newly installed Zoom app to connect to a meeting with your parents back home. You’d been forced to download the app to see your family since the government had announced a lockdown and you couldn’t travel home for the Easter break as you had planned to see your loved ones. Instead, you were stuck indoors with four boys who you loved dearly, but it still didn’t take away the ache you felt from missing your family.

              You’d moved to London about a year ago to start your career as a writer and it was going incredibly! You had your own flat, your dream job, and you’d even started dating the most amazing man a couple of months ago. You had met Harrison through work, technically. You were sent to interview a couple of the models at a Joshua Kane runway event to get a take on how to models themselves felt about the line and how to clothing made them feel. You were more interested in writing about film and pop culture but when your co-worker went on maternity leave early, you had to share her projects with two of your other co-workers; something you’d have to thank her for profusely when she got back because otherwise you wouldn’t have fallen head over heels for Harrison. You had never been one to believe in that ‘love at first sight’ crap but you didn’t really know how to describe it otherwise. He was so captivating. He answered all of your questions honestly and really went into detail, giving you lots of material to write with. You were hanging onto his every last word, marvelling at the innate beauty he held, the slight goofy way in which he presented himself (extremely different to how he displayed himself on the runway), and the adorable crumple of his nose and hand gestures he made while cracking little jokes mid-conversation.

             Too nervous, and professional, to ask for his number or anything like that, you’d thanked him and left kicking yourself that you didn’t know more about him. Sure, you looked him up you realised who he was and what acting projects he was involved in (for future reference so you could request to cover those interviews) but he was practically a stranger. Until, a week after your article was published one of the interns at your firm popped his head over your computer monitor to let you know a Mr. Osterfield was in reception waiting to see you. You freaked. Had you misrepresented him? Paraphrased too much? Was he pissed that your article focused on what he had to say too much? Or not enough? Your legs shook as they carried you towards reception. You curled the ends of your hair around your fingers, cursing yourself for not foreseeing this and wearing a nicer outfit, or putting more makeup on this morning. Here you were, meeting an actual male model and you looked like a complete Plain Jane in a bottle green jumper and dark grey slacks.

             Except, when you saw him in the waiting area, he was a completely different Harrison to the one you’d met previously. Fluffy hair pushed back loosely, an oversized cream jumper hiding his perfect frame, and a pair of baby blue jeans on him. He also had a pair of glasses balanced on his nose and wore a nervous expression, much like the one adorning your face. Oh no. You liked this Harrison so much more. He was adorable, stumbling over his words as he explained he had searched for your article on the web so that he could contact you, disappointed in himself for not getting your number that night. His eyes darted around the room and he scratched at the back of his neck idly as he nervously asked if you would be interested in meeting him for lunch the next day. You had giggled like a schoolgirl and told him ‘of course’, before exchanging numbers with him and waving goodbye from the foot of the stairs up to your office; vaguely catching him high-fiving a very familiar brown eyed and brown haired man once he thought he was out of sight.

            You two quickly became inseparable. He’d introduced you to the boys and you’d gotten along with them amazingly, especially Tom who confirmed he had bullied and encouraged Harrison to contact you once he found the article. Harrison had brought you with him to walk Monty and was a little put out when Monty seemed to favour walking beside you rather than him. You made it official between the two of you after a couple of months of seeing each other, but you still had one major obstacle to get over before you could be 100% solidified as a couple; meeting each other’s family. You’d both spoken about it, wanting to find the perfect time to arrange dinners and get togethers which was especially hard with both your work schedules. But any half-plan the two of you had made was now moot since quarantine began. You were thankful when Harrison cleared it with the boys and invited you to stay with them for the duration of lockdown since the thought of spending all that time alone in your flat was lowkey killing you. The topic of meeting each other’s family was on hold for now, though you both knew it was the first port of call as soon as this was all over.

            You had told your parents briefly about Harrison, said you were dating someone from London, but never actually mentioned how serious the relationship was and your parents never pried. You had been reluctant to video call them from Harrison’s shared house for some reason but when Tom and Harry went out to bring Tessa for a walk, Tuwaine was locked up in his room, and Harrison said he was going to workout for an hour or so, you thought it was the perfect time for a quick video call before the lads wreaked havoc on the house again. So here you were, sipping on your tea and appreciating the springtime sounds drifting through the windows while waiting on your laptop to connect. Eventually the screen changed from a loading one to one of your parents sitting in front of their computer screen. A bit pixely, but they were there. You smiled and waved enthusiastically at them and laughed when they waved back before lowering the camera to show you the family dog back home, wagging his tail at the excitement.

           “Hey, honey! How are you? How have you been coping?” Your mum asks as you tell them all about your boredom in lockdown. They fill you in on all the family drama you’d missed over the last few months and ask if you’re coming to see them when lockdown ends. Before you’d realised it you had already been on video chat with them for almost 40 minutes, laughing and swapping inside jokes.

           “Where are you, darling? The background doesn’t look like your flat. Have you gotten some work done?” Your dad asks inquisitively. Just as you’re about to tell them you’re staying at a “friend’s house” you hear movement coming from the kitchen door.

           “Y/N? Sweetheart, have you seen my headphones? I’ve decided to go for a run instead but I can’t find – oh. Sorry are you in the middle of something?” Harrison catches your wide eyes and frantic expression. You’re desperately trying to think of a way to avoid your parents asking about who’s calling you ‘sweetheart’ but it doesn’t work.

          “Ahhh, you’re staying with the boyfriend? I didn’t think it had gotten that serious.” Your mum quips, eyeing the camera knowingly. It’s now Harrison’s turn to look frantic, his eyes going as wide as saucers. He mouths the word ‘sorry’ at least 7 times before you let out a nervous laugh.

          “Ehh, yeah, Mum. I’m staying with my boyfriend for lockdown. Couldn’t stand being in my flat alone for God knows how long.” You say, desperately hoping she won’t ask what you know she will. Harrison is frozen to the spot, not really knowing what to do. Should he go? Should he just appear on screen? You’re not sure either.

         “Well…? Is he invisible? Can we meet him?” Your dad asks gruffly, a hint of humour to his voice. You let out a relenting sigh. Scooting your chair to the side while meeting Harrison’s eyes in question over the screen. He nods frantically in response, running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to tidy it up.

        “For the record, I wanted to introduce you in person over Easter but with all that’s going on we never got the chance to visit. I suppose this is the next best thing. Mum, dad, this is Harrison, my boyfriend.” You present as Harrison appears on screen beside you, a relaxed smile appearing on his face. He really is a great actor.

       “Uh hi it’s really great to meet you guys! Well, see you guys, technically. I know Y/N was really excited about introducing us properly and I was really looking forward to meeting you.” You hold your breath as you wait for this encounter to be less awkward than it was turning out to be and soon enough with Harrison’s charm and your parents’ easy-going demeanours, the four of you were chatting comfortably and making plans to meet up as soon as lockdown was over.

       “Oh Y/N, I can see why you were keeping this one to yourself. He’s quite the Prince Charming.” Your mum exclaims, causing you to groan and drop your head into your hands while Harrison held in a delighted chuckle.

       “Okay, Mum. Yep, thanks. Listen, I’ll call you tomorrow okay? It was lovely seeing you, stay safe!” You call, waving though the screen.

       “Nice to meet you, guys! Look forward to actually meeting you!” Harrison shouts, waving like a madman. You close the lid on your laptop and groan as you lower your head into your arms. You can hear Harrison chuckling behind you, arms coming around your frame comfortably.

        “I’m so sorry. I should have warned you I was going on video call.” You mumble and Harrison’s body vibrates against yours with laughter.

        “Why are you apologising? That was really nice, actually! Trial by fire, as it were.” He laughs out and you turn to face him. He’s smiling so widely at you and your heart melts a little. “I mean, as much as I would have loved to drive out to your parent’s house for dinner with a lovely bottle of wine and a bouquet of flowers for them, the impromptu meeting was perfect and makes me all the more excited to actually meet them. At least I’ve already laid down some groundwork with your dad, he definitely won’t hate me now, I’m sure of it.” He tells you and you slap his chest lightly, laughing with him.

       “Oh shut it, you know no one could ever hate you. You’re way too charming. Plus, you play golf so that’s an immediate common ground with my dad.” Harrison leans down and presses his lips to yours sweetly. Holding you in a delicate embrace.

        “You know, this means that now you definitely have to meet my family. Maybe I can feature you in my next Zoom call? My sister has been asking me endless questions about the ‘mystery woman in my life’.” He jokes and you both laugh again.

         “Mystery woman! That sounds like an article half the people in my office would write. You know I don’t do tabloids.” Your eyes narrow at him and he holds his hands up in defense. “But I would love to feature in your next Zoom call, on one condition; Monty is in it too.”

        “Deal.” Harrison then swoops you up into his arms making you cry out in surprise. “I’ve decided not to go for a run. There are other ways to get my cardio in for today.” You giggle as Harrison lightly peppers your face in kisses as he carries you up the stairs towards his bedroom.

Maybe this Quarantine wasn’t half as bad as you thought.

#harrisonosterfield #harrison #osterfield #haz osterfield #haz #harrison x reader #harrison fluff #blurb #fluff #quarantine

[twinkledadwa]

Home is Where (a ghost nest #1)

 november 7th, 4:47 am pst.

 in all sincerity;

 this interview was birthed from the innate fear of death. for what it is to ‘be a ghost’, beyond having the ability to slam doors after your passing, isn’t truly defined. a trait consistent throughout the many interpretations of angels, spirits, paranormal and such is the presence felt being an essence lost in time. ‘who’ a person is stops at their death. all human aspects stripped, ghosts work as an echo of a fading past; something more akin to a message in a bottle than an entity still living.

 so, in our lives, do we strive to create essences that continue to build after our deaths? or do we attempt to capture our essences well enough at the moment to make our ghosts stronger? the latter has been adopted for ‘a ghost nest’. i hope, for everybody’s sake, that it isn't explained again. context felt necessary to clear up why these interviews are in a hybrid, ‘Dear Sally’-esque format. what this should be considered, at most, is an exercise in essence on a minuscule scale.

 and on november 7th, at approximately 5:10 am pst, brandon macdonald expressed a similar sentiment. ‘tantrum provider’ for Palm Coast-based emo band Home is Where, they noted the name’s function as a subliminal advertisement; so that whenever the proverb it takes from is used, listeners at any moment in time will harken back to sound bleeding with vibrancy. ‘the scientific classification of stingrays’ (topical cover art) carries an urgency somehow familiar, symptomatic of the band stretching their foundations into their own monument. for ninety minutes, unknowingly breaths away from a new president-elect, we had a conversation.

 this is Home is Where’s ghost nest.

  So, how long is too long for us not to have a presidential assassination?

  Brandon: Um, that’s a good question. I was on a local podcast recently and, funny enough, I didn’t know going into it that they’re sponsored by a financial magazine?  I lost my shit finding that out. I was laughing my ass off. I was like, “your financial magazine, right now, is supporting an artist who is a dedicated Marxist. A communist who sees these people on the street and knows that I represent exactly what they’re against”. The song isn’t meant to be about an actual assassination or about Orange Man himself. I wanted it to be a comment on the structure itself, you know, how long living within it does it take before everything builds up and we eventually bite the hand that feeds us?

  Protest music that names specific presidents does not age well. Look at 80s punk, besides Dead Kennedys, mentioning Reagan. You know, what was the name of that compilation against Bush? The intention was to write a protest song that lasts longer than a presidency. Also, it was easier from a lyric-writing perspective, although there are plenty of words that rhyme with Trump. I don’t know about McConnell [laughs]. 

    Videos of ‘stingrays’ live date back to January. Was all the material off the next record written pre-quarantine?

    All of it. We were sitting on this material for a while, and we went into the studio in early April. We wanted to pump something out before, you know, the end of the world happened. So we got those done, it was mastered around May, and now we are waiting for a few more parts to be sent in. That’s no worries, it’s been a difficult time for all of us. The original plan wasn’t even to drop a single for ‘i became birds’. 2021 was coming up and we hadn’t released anything this year, so ‘stingrays’ felt like the most direct and obvious choice.

   In the world, how do you see both your personal presence & Home is Where’s presence?

   You know, I don’t leave the house much. If I do, I wear a mask. I go to work. I spend time with my cat. I hang out with my girlfriend when I can, as we’re pretty much on opposite schedules. The band hasn’t been up to much. We haven’t met since May and we’ve all faced changes in our individual lives, but at some point, when or if the chaos comes to an end, we’ll be playing together again.    In terms of Home is Where? We’re an emo band from Florida. There’s plenty of those. This might be a pretty trash take, but a lot of the bands in the scene comment on liberalism, and you can only gain so much by listening to it. You should spend your time reading theory, doing something actually important, so you’d be able to make a change in the world. So, in the grand scheme of things, Home is Where is not important. However, it is something I love and am fortunate enough to do. 

  Dear Brandon, of Home is Where.   I’m having trouble finding my own space when stuck home with my family. What should I do?

  Charley, in Pennsylvania.

------------------------------------------------

  Brandon: Is this referring to COVID?

  I’m pretty sure it is.

. Okay, I think I have an answer for this.

  In terms of finding your own space, just find something you’re passionate about and, fucking, dive headfirst into it. A few years back, around the time we started to get serious with the band, I was in a position where I didn’t have a job but I had enough saved up so that it was a few months until I had to worry about rent. With all the time I had, I wanted to buckle down and get really into something I wanted to learn everything about emo. You know, I knew Rites of Spring were the ones who started the genre and some of the stuff about the 90s, but I wanted to know all of it. There were 2000 emo albums that I downloaded and I listened through all of them. Everyone inspired me. Not all of them were good, no. Some were bad, but by listening to them, I knew exactly what I didn’t want to do. It helped clarify what I wanted Home is Where to sound like.

  Find something you’re passionate about. You know, reading theory, making art, do something that makes at home in your home. You can do so many great things.

  Do you have any song recommendations for this situation?

  I have two! The first is, well, you can never go wrong with Cap’n Jazz. Pioneers, truly some of the greats. Tim Kinsella is a genius; I do my best to take what I can from him. It’s him and Bob Dylan. The song is We Are Scientists! (by Cap’n Jazz). I believe some of the lyrics do touch upon that feeling of being stuck around other people. Like, “starchy product scripted people I never asked to care about”? “you can’t look at the sky without looking right through it”? Those lines are, mwah, chef’s kiss!

  The second is H.S. by Plunger. Let me pull up the lyrics to this. It’s another one that comments directly on feeling isolated from those around you. Here it is; “All these old faces/Smiling and laughing/But you’ll never leave fourteen”. Yeah, that seems to sum up the emotion this person expressed.

  Dear Brandon, of Home is Where.   Things recently ended with a person I had been seeing. I hurt them, didn’t communicate my feelings properly, and I feel like garbage for it. I leave the continent for 5 months in a few weeks, and I want to reach out before I leave, but also I want to give her space? Should I wait and see if she reaches out? I’m a dumb stupid idiot.   Dumb stupid idiot, in Maine.

------------------------------------------------

  ‘Dumb stupid idiot’ [laughs]. That truly is an emo question. I am sorry to hear that you’re going through that. That sucks, man. Heartbreak sucks. I wish you the best in leaving the country during COVID times, seeing as that might be difficult, and hopefully, it opens your eyes to new things.

 My one piece of advice is to give it time. I know a few years seems like a lot of time, but it really isn’t. There are moments where I, too, indulge in being derogatory towards myself. Home is Where has lyrics about feeling alienated, being hard on yourself. A few years ago, I moved back to the town I grew up in, and even though it was considered ‘home’, I didn’t feel that. It was tough. Eventually, over time, everything came together. You just gotta wait and look back when you’re in a better headspace,

  You’re going overseas, you have so many new experiences ahead of you. Who knows, maybe you two will end up working out, we’ll see. You got this. I’m rooting for ya.

   Do you have any song recommendations?

    I came up with three, actually. One isn’t emo or anything close to adjacent, so I added another to compensate.

   I Love You Too by Rainer Maria is the first one. It’s hard to find emo that deals straight up with a break-up, there isn’t much out there, but Rainer Maria stuck out. This song is killer. That entire EP is killer. One of the best emo bands ever.

   Idiot Wind by Bob Dylan is my second recommendation. Which is not emo, but in terms of break-up songs, it doesn’t get much better than this. Blood on the Tracks is fucking brutal; Dylan puts blame on pretty much everything.

  The other emo song is from, I want to say, around 2000 or 2001? Near the end of that 90s, ‘second wave’ emo, whatever it is considered. The song is For Meg by On the Might of Princes. It’s about Meg Griffin from Family Guy. No, it’s not. Actually, I am not sure, but this track has just about everything; it’s lo-fi, has some screams, and the lyrics seem to discuss a heartbreak;

 ”This is for you. to hold you close, to keep you Close to my heart. I'll scream it til your ears bleed You'll always have a friend in me”

 Great, great emo that gets heavy. They’re the only emo band that Brave Little Abacus cited as an influence on their sound. You should definitely check them out.

 Home is Where’s visual ghost nest (collages & mixtape visualizer) consists of: Modern Times//Halloween: Resurrection (”Busta Rhymes beating the shit out of Michael Myers is a 10/10 for me”)//Blood Diner//Simpsons: Hit & Run//City Lights//Woody Guthrie: Hard Travelin’//The Horror of Party Beach//Peanuts//Zippy the Pinhead//Fritz the Cat//The Enfield Haunting//Twin Peaks//Wayne’s World 2//Synecdoche, New York//Japanese Woodblock Prints

  Home is Where can be found on twitter, facebook, and bandcamp. ‘i became birds’ out 2021 on Knifepunch Records. 

 their ghost nest is on spotify. questions for future ‘episodes’ can be asked under the advice tab.

  this now exists. bless to brandon, Home is Where, and you all.

#what would be a good hashtag #interview #Home is Where #diy #emo #college #ghosts #ghost nest #florida is in stage 4. isn't that concerning? #bob dylan #tacoma

[paintmearainbow]

What Is Love ?

Love.

Love means different things to different people. Some people say love is making your partner happy and seeing them happy makes you happy . But love, is actually a figment of our imaginations. In a way, love is selfish and makes us lose our independence. You make the other person happy to keep yourself happy, and you become dependent and vulnerable. It's a somewhat like a shared dream. And until one person decides to wakeup, and that dream, albeit fun while it lasted, becomes a living nightmare

1 YEAR AGO

For Harry and y/n; sneaking out of premiers and award shows,buying tacos and eating them at 3 AM was love. For them, love was dancing in the kitchen to Elvis and baking with each other. Love was watching horror movies in makeshift tents, snacking on caramel popcorns and cans of soda; all while making fun of Harry's "those dumb bitches" in the movie. Love was falling asleep in each others arms and reading each other books. It was dressing up as Disney characters and acting out scenes from their favourite animations. It was etheral, perfect. Almost too perfect too be true

People always said "Love will fizzle out. One of you will get bored." Harry and y/n didn't listen. They burned so fast, so bright and didn't realise that their spark too, like all blazed and sparks from lighted matches, had extinguished. One second it was burning so brightly, and the next, it was gone

..............................................................................................

"When was the last time you spoke to him ?" asked y/n's sister.

" A week ago" a distraught y/n replied. "He barely has time to even talk to me on the phone, let alone show me the sights and explore the places with him via facetime"

For a brief moment, she allowed herself to close her eyes and all the memories flashed through her eyes, like a movie roll, playing over and over agai

FLASHBACK

"Y/N !" exclaimed Harry, the golden flecks in his eyes dancing with joy. Oh how she longed to see him, feel him and be with him in real life , rather than on a screen. Yet she was eternally grateful for Harry for never making her feel left out from the tour experience, he always made sure to show her around, even if it was only on a screen, while giving tour guide commentary in a horribly fake American accent.

"You're in for a treat ! We're going to see the Louvre today. Come on an enjoy the sited with Harry's Tour Experiences"

Y/n couldn't stop laughing.

Being an art fanatic, she giving Harry detailed descriptions of the art, while all he did was turn it inti a joke. His put on accent stood out when he kept saying " Oh shucks ! Here's another painting of a few women and men fighting and eating." He termed an entire style of art; renaissance art as "men and women barely dressed fighting and eating". He made a few sly comments on how y/n would look lovely in that dress. It was so wonderful and each of these virtual trips was marked with his signature end. Going to a park, and eating the same food.

His laughter was contagious and y/n loved it. She wondered how she got so lucky, so blessed to have hazza in her life.

She never thought that this love, would eventually fizzle.

end of flashback

Now she was lucky if he spoke to her for 5 minutes. Even those 5 minutes were filled with her talking and him showing least interest in what she had to say. She doubted whether he even listened.

Today, however was a low blow. It was y/n' bday. had it been any other year. Harry would've made this day perfect. They had been together since they were 18. The first year, he bought her 18 gifts on her birthday. The subsequent year, he got her 19 and so on. He would make her breakfast in bed and wake her up with showers of kisses and a "Good Morning, Happy Birthday Darling."

Today however, at 7 PM , she was yet to have him acknowledge that it was her birthday. She was yet to have any sign of news from him at all. She illusioned herself, thinking that maybe he had interviews to attend.

Her sister, however, tired with y/n's moping, said" You're coming over with your friends to Club 22 this night or else I wont speak to you. I don't want you to spend your birthday moping around"

With great difficulty, y/n was persuaded by her friends to go clubbing. The loud music, the drinks and the dim lights were never y/n's scene. Yet, for the sake of her friends, she fixed up a smile on her face and tried to enjoy, trying her best to forget than Harry's call still hadn't come.

.......

It was 10 PM and the party was in full swing. y/n's friends were drunk, so drunk. Everyone around her was laughing, drinking and joking. Meanwhile, a new disturbing thought had settled in y/n's head. What if he got into and accident ? What if he's really sick ? She was ridden with anxiety and couldn't get Harry off her mind, until that one fateful message from Nezza, her best friend, Harry's PA, through whom they had met, sent her that message. When y/n's phone lit up and she scarmbled to see the text, hoping it was Harry, she did not know it would change her life permanently.

The text was simple. "I'm so so sorry honey; you deserve to know" It was attached with a single file of pictures.

She subconciously knew what had happened. She had seen all the signs, yet chose to ignore them, not wanting to get up from her dream. The reduced duration of phone calls ultimately leading up to a call a month, the regular excuses, coming home late, half hearted kisses, they all added up. For a split second, y/n wanted to think that it was something else; maybe harry was too drunk or had passed out in a bar.

The message to forever to download. It was so slow and painfully excruciating. It was like the calm before the storm. The slow before the fast. The light drizzle before the thunderstorm. When the picture finally loaded; her heart shattered ever so fast. The pain she felt was numbing, yet somewhere in her mind, she was gald that Harry was safe.

There was Harry, his arm around the small waist of the redhead, his fingers entwined in hers. The same fingers which ran through y/n's hair multiple times, were now woven in another's hand. She thought her heart couldnt break more.

Fate was not kind to y/n.

She swiped to see the next picture, and she wasn't sure how, or whether it was even possible, but her heart further broke. Harry was kissing her in the booth, their booth, in Alessandro's the place he had her first date with y/n.

Fate had evil plans for y/n.

Tears streaming down her face, the makeup for the night ruined, y/n looked around for her sister and friends but they were nowhere to be seen. The only thing glowing right now was her glitzy dress, the one she had been forced into. Unable to take it anymore, she ordered an uber and left.

Fate wasn't kind to y/n at all

The minute she left the club, she was blinded with lights, the flashes from the camera, and the shouts from the reporters

" How do you feel about Harry cheating on you on tour ?"

"Did you expect this ? How do you react to Harry kissing a supermodel, younger than you!"

Y/n wanted to scream, but keeping her emotions in she pushed through the sea of people, got into her uber, gave her address and broke down.

She cried and cried. The uber driver tried to ask her what was wrong but she couldn't stop crying. she wanted the pain to go away. she wanted to cry. But most of all, she wanted Harry to tell her that it wasn't true and hold her in his arms and tell her it's alright.

But it wasn't. it wasn't alright. Far from it.

The next morning after an extremly broken sleep, y/n awoke. All the event's from last night wre remembered and her eyes started to water again. She switched on her phone to see the hashtag #y/ndeservesbetter and #harryandy/nareover trending. She also so 100 missed calls, voicemails and texts from Harry but chose to ignore them.

Y/n was raised to be strong. She spent most of childhood see her mom struggle to make meets end. She had seen the worst. She was strong. She went over to the mirror and saw her reflection and realised that she looked a mess. She took 3 deep breaths, washed her face, and masked her emotions, just as she did way back in high school, before she met Harry, before he changed her.

She went down and suddenly the apartment door opened. There stood the man who she loved, the man who had broken her heart, the one who still held her heart, no matter how broken it was.

He pleaded with her to forgive him. He begged, cried, said it was a one time mistake, and he regretted it, that he loved her; but y/n turned a deaf ear to his pleas. Their love had fizzled out, and she was blinded by affection not to realise it earlier. And as the saying goes " Once a cheater, always a cheater." Y/n wasn't taking any more risks. She put on a strong facade, made up her mind and left, leaving a crying Harry on the porch.

She wasn't over him, far from it. She was so broken, yet showed no signs. She had calm expresssion, yet her thoughts were chaotic. But she knew what was best and she knew this was the right thing to do. She had to take the lessons from this experience and move on, just like her mother had taught her. Dreams end, no matter how amazing it is, no matter how much you want to hold on and live it, and this, her perfect dream, had also come to an end.

So, what is love ?

A dream ? A nightmare ? Soemthing too good to be true?

Maybe all it is, is an illusion. A fairytale. Or maybe it is the truth, because truth teaches us lessons and so does love. i guess it's one of those things which just has no answers.

author's note

AND THATS A WRAP. I DO NOT CONDONE CHEATING. it's something which definitely shouldnt be forgive . this the first ever imagine I've posted on my new tumblr. Please send feedback. Hope you enjoyed it. Reblog. What are your thoughts? i would love to hear them. Send requests for more imagines.

i should be studying but eh.

keep dreaming

ashu.

(here's a random B99 gif for no reason)

#harrystyles #harrystylesimagines #harrystylesangst #angstimagines #newwritersclub #newwriter #imagines #love #whatislove #angst #sadimagines #reblog #comment #y/n #harry x y/n #harry x you #harry styles x reader #reader x character #reader × harry #firstimagine #writer #excerpt from a book i'll never write #Spotify

[officialcolumbiauniversity]

February 15, 2020. It’s been a great start to spring semester on campus; I’m registered for 4 classes as well as research, but I decided today that I’m going to drop one of them. Puts me at barely 13 credits but it’s worth it: the psets for that one class had 10-15 problems each week, and it would take me around 4 hours per problem to finish. And it was only 2 credits! I only stayed in it this long because I love the subject, and it’s half a semester so I thought I could just suffer through it and bullshit my way through. BUT I love the subject, and I would rather take two years to understand it once than fail the class now then relearn it again in grad school. 

Anyways, with the absence of this class I suddenly have 5 days of the week off, and it’s Saturday so I’m gonna take a nap then try to get some work done for research. I’m in a new lab again this semester, after the last two labs over two semesters were definitely not the right fit lol. This semester is one I’m hoping to stay in for the rest of undergrad: it’s a baby lab because the PI was just appointed at Columbia last semester. Three grad students and me, potentially a postdoc that I had the honor of sitting in on his interview of! and asking questions along with the other team members (interviews are just an hour-long talk of the postdoc’s research history and what he plans to continue). I love love LOVE this lab because I feel like an actual member of the group, with agency, like I’m going up on the website n all that :) and I can stroll into work whenever I want and the PI is training the grads and I himself, etc. The lab is brand-new, so new that a good portion of it hasn’t been set-up yet and actually a good portion of my research will be creating some of the technology!! Because we’re trying to develop a way to image single electrons, so obviously it doesn’t exist and we’ll be developing microscopes to figure out how.

Anyways, that’s my academic life. Clearly I can talk about research all day so I’m just gonna move on. I will say that I’ve been taking so many math classes that I realized like a week ago I could totally get a math concentration too if I just took like another 4 classes, so I guess I’m chem/math now! Wow a whole STEM bitch y’all could never

I’m otherwise not too involved in campus life anymore, tbh. I can’t tell if that’s the norm, because I don’t think it is but when my sorority was preparing for recruitment and we quickly introduced ourselves to the rest of the chapter a surprising number of people upperclassmen were like yeah I kinda do this and I’m in this club but I don’t rlly go to meetings anymore and ya pretty much the sorority is what i’m most involved in now. And i was like huh. I do, however, still worry about it, and i keep trying to think of ways to get involved so that job or grad school applications are easier. Research takes up most of my time so when I get back from it, I’m pooped. I either go work out or watch Netflix, or cook, or chill w my dog, and I’m honestly happy with this life. I guess I’ve kind of figured out that clubs are pretty culty on campus, and not being involved in a club doesn’t mean you’re not passionate about it. It just means that those people who are just make it their whole life/social scene, the way I make my dog and research my whole life.

On campus, things have settled down since the Tess Majors attack. I don’t think I wrote about it before: just a few days before finals week a Barnard freshman named Tess was stabbed to death in a mugging as she was walking back to campus. It was terrifying not only because she was an unarmed, white, freshman, but also because it happened with no provocation and extremely close to campus. I personally ended up deferring two of my finals to the beginning of this semester, because I was too scared to leave my dorm to study. I also spent a ridiculous amount of money on Postmates and when I had to leave I took a cab even 4 blocks. Since being back on campus, things have quieted down, but I along with a lot of other people downloaded the Citizens app, and that awareness of all the crime going on in the city makes me feel much more vulnerable still.

Also, for some reason a facebook page called Columbia Confessions has blown up; I’ve posted three or so times myself and my most recent one, a shitpost about stealing people’s Canada Gooses at parties, broke a hunnid which I’m proud of! I actually wrote it to specifically target some kid who kept complaining about his lost Valentino, and someone actually tagged him lmao.

Lastly (that I can think of), the housing process has just begun and its a weird time on campus as usual: freshmen breaking down and losing friends over groupings, sophomores just trying to avoid the drama of last year, juniors angling to see if they can get an EC suite or a nice Hogan single. I personally was offered a nice single in my sorority house which i GAVE UP because a good friend of mine we’ll call Omicron wanted to room together and I’m tired of not having friends lol. She’s got ODS accommodations and theoretically so do I, so we’re trying to go for a Watt, EC, or Woodbridge 2-bedroom suite. I don’t know which I want because I’ve never been in any of those dorms, besides an EC townhouse, so I’m feeling really nervous about giving up my brownstone room. But I don’t really fuck w my sorority anymore, and worst comes to worst I’ll live in River because they have some HUGE ass singles, so for now i’ll trust Omicron and hope that we get a Watt 2br because they have lounges. 

OH lastly for real, I’m in art hum this semester! so keep ur luscious eyes peeled for a Core Review at the end of this semester~

#columbia university #journal entry #columbia journal entry #ivy league #columbia confessions #undergrad research #stem research #chemistry #canada goose #columbia college

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Other Jenna rarities

With the surprise release of the long-delayed Corporate Monster short film last week, along with the announcement of Xenoblade Chronicles getting a remastered reissue on the Nintendo Switch, Jenna’s run on Waterloo Road being picked up by iPlayer, and some parts of the world getting Jenna’s episode of Thunderbirds Are Go for free on YouTube, it seems to be the season for rare (or, at least, uncommon), Jenna Coleman performances to turn up.

So are there any other hard-to-find Jenna Coleman works awaiting a wider release? Turns out, yes (though "rare” may depend on one’s preferences for audio-visual media in some cases, or where you live). Here are a few examples of “hidden treasures”:

Length break follows first ....

* Room at the Top: Jenna played a major role in the award-winning BBC adaptation of John Braine’s novel which aired in 2012 after being delayed a year due to licensing issues. These issues are likely why it has never been released to DVD (and I haven’t been able to confirm if it ever aired in North America), though it can be found on some streaming services in some regions. Outside streaming, the only part of it that gets widely circulated online, sadly, is the bit where Jenna takes her top off for 5 seconds.

* Emmerdale: According to IMDb, Jenna appeared in 179 episodes of the soap opera. Needless to say, there won’t be a DVD release of all those episodes, and as far as I know there aren’t any streaming options either (though I may be wrong). Some fans have put together compilations of Jenna’s scenes, but many clips posted on YouTube tend to get pulled for copyright. Among the “holy grails” is the Christmas episode that featured young Jenna taking part in a pantomime, and a musical number the cast did for the Children in Need Appeal one year. There’s also Jenna’s appearance on Children in Need along with her castmates the same year David Tennant’s first minisode as Ten aired. (BTW her follow-up run on Waterloo Road isn’t a rarity: it’s on DVD in the UK, just got put on iPlayer, and has been available worldwide on YouTube for a year or two.)

* A Christmas Carol: A couple of years ago, Jenna took part in her first (and to date only) audio drama, recording a part for a production of A Christmas Carol. As it’s an Audible release, there’s no CD issue available or planned. I tried a few times to get a copy through Amazon (which still lists it as a free “download” here in Canada), but eventually gave up as I couldn’t get it to work. Hopefully an MP3 version will show up somewhere.

* The Secret Garden: Around the time she recorded Destiny of the Doctor (see below), Jenna recorded an audio book of the famous children’s story for AudioGo. Released only a couple months before AudioGo went out of business, it was only available as a CD briefly. I understand it can now be obtained via Audible.

* Destiny of the Doctor: The Time Machine: Jenna’s only (to date) recording related to Doctor Who was her reading of an exclusive-to-audio story that served as the finale of a 12-part arc co-produced by Big Finish and AudioGo to mark the 50th anniversary. Jenna does not play Clara in this, instead she plays a one-off companion to Eleven named Alice Watson. It’s never discussed in the story, but I assume she’s a Clara echo. She also gets to play the Eleventh Doctor in the story. Sadly, it was to be released around the same time AudioGo collapsed which caused problems for obtaining it. Luckily, Big Finish made it available and I believe you can still order it from them.

* LEGO Dimensions: Jenna provided Clara’s voice for two very brief appearances in both the main game and the Doctor Who expansion mission. The online-connected game was retired in late 2017, though I believe it can still be played.

* All My Sons: As a play, this becomes an instant “rarity” obviously (along with the plays Jenna did before Emmerdale and the pantomime she did after Waterloo Road), but in this case there has also been a performance that was streamed live to theatres in the UK last spring (with belated North American streaming scheduled for the months to come), so a recording exists. The company that does the streaming does not release DVD or home-streaming versions of the plays.

* Jenna’s sitcom: During her “Hollywood year”, Jenna has said in interviews that she filmed a pilot for a sitcom. The sitcom wasn’t picked up and has never been released. Unless the recording has been destroyed (as a US production this is unlikely, but not impossible), there is always the chance it might turn up somewhere, someday. A number of never-broadcast pilots have shown up on YouTube over the years. It might be easier to find if we actually had a title to search for. Maybe someone can ask Jenna if she remembers next time they meet her at a con?

* Victoria PBS edits: Since PBS airs Victoria without commercial breaks, the version aired in the US has several minutes of extra footage added to most episodes. Some additions are minor, but there have also been scenes that have filled plot holes, and there have been a number of great Jenna moments and Jenna & Tom moments. While these versions can be viewed online at PBS if you’re in the US, the home video versions use the ITV edits. I have not been able to confirm if any streaming version of Victoria (like the newly announced Acorn TV in Australia) uses the longer edits. 

* Jenna’s TV and radio commercials: As anyone who has visited Jenna’s artist page at the voiceover agency Yakety Yak knows, she’s narrated quite a few commercials. Although you can hear the audio to some of them here, the ads themselves are generally hard to come by today (and the Yakety Yak page has removed a few audio clips over the last year or so). The only "ad” (if you can call it that) I’ve been able to locate on YouTube featuring her is a chilling PSA Jenna made early in her career for an agency that works with abused children. This one was hiding in plain sight for years because the person who uploaded it misspelled Jenna’s name.

There are undoubtedly other examples of rarities (and I’m not even including interviews, fashion shoots, etc.).

#jenna coleman #our queen

[rebeccasaltman]

VERY SALTY PSA - WALKING WITH WISDOM 8-19-19 

“When I'm in turmoil, when I can't think, when I'm exhausted and afraid and feeling very, very alone, I go for walks. It's just one of those things I do. I walk and I walk and sooner or later something comes to me, something to make me feel less like jumping off a building.” 

― Jim Butcher, Storm Front

Buckle up, this is going to take a minute 😎

Living in this crazy world these days is just a lotta lotta.  I will start this Very SALTY PSA with some deep vulnerability by saying I have been pretty depressed lately. I hadn’t really experienced depression in my life before so I didn’t know or understand this is what it felt like. GRATEFULLY these moments of depression have been sprinkled with amazing people in my life (read my partners in “crime”, my Sisters, She-Roes, folks in the BURG, essential oils and longtime friends and family) who likely unknowingly pulled me up and got me out of the holes that have been occupying my time.

A few weeks ago, precisely 21 days ago, I decided I needed to get off my tush and start walking everyday. Although swimming is my thing, (and I am completely clear this is a first world problem) I don’t always have enough time to fit in a swim. I don’t have that same excuse with walking, put on my dang shoes and go! 

Although I would like to say that walking is a meditation for me and I can walk in silence, that is not my experience. My first few walks I tried to “meditate” while walking, listening to the Oprah Deepak 21 day meditations … Although I did LISTEN to the the meditations while walking I don’t think Oprah and Deepak intended those meditations to be done in motion ;-)... After a few days of that I stopped my meditation in motion, woke up a bit earlier to do my morning practice and then put my shoes on and walked, but now I needed something to listen to.

I started searching for something to get me out of my funk and my dear rainforest sister reminded me I needed to start reading FULLY ALIVE by Tyler Gage again… So although I have it both in print AND on my kindle I got it on Audible and started walking and listening…  This book was incredible for me… The description on Amazon says this

“Fully Alive tells the story of an astoundingly successful young entrepreneur’s immersion in Amazonian indigenous spirituality, its life-changing impact on him, and how he integrated the lessons he learned to build a successful, socially responsible company, live a purposeful life, and make a difference in the world.”

So for this social entrepreneur looking to find what is next, this book was PROFOUND, it even talks about his work with Manari Kaji Ushigua Santi and starting the healing village in Naku, HOW DOES IT GET BETTER?!?! On Audible Fully Alive is a bit more than 6 hours of listening time, I was so engaged I listened to it not only on my walks but drives and in betweens so I finished it in THREE DAYS!!! ACK SO NOW WHAT??? Stalk Tyler Gage and see if he will talk to me? Well maybe ;-)

So next, I took the advice of my dear Ayruvedic Doc and got a walking app, Walk Meter Elite… I thought that may occupy my time but alas I still needed something to listen to. In Fully Alive, Tyler Gage recommends several books, one of which was The Hard Thing About Hard Things so I promptly downloaded that onto audible and finished it in a few days! This book was also fantastic, although I am CLEARLY not in the high tech industry and I am generally not playing in the venture capital world this book shares so many amazing lessons, I can’t begin to describe… The one thing that is unique about this book is he discusses how although it may be easy to start a business, running a business is a different thing altogether. Such great lessons!

OKAY WOW a few things are starting to happen after 3 weeks of walking. First, my walks are getting longers, maybe so I can listen longer (I am walking about 4.25 miles a day!)  Next, walking is becoming a bit of an “expense” however I am reframing this into an investment toward my education and business planning and third and most importantly I am a bit less depressed - HMMMMMM, this may be a thing…

So this takes us to this morning. I am done with the other two books, and although I am working on listening to a Buckminster Fuller book Grunch of Giants (which I really love) when reading or listening to Bucky,  I actually need to sit down and take notes, it is too dense for walking 😲… So, I decided to open up my never ending podcast list and find something. The first thing that opened when opening the Podcast app on my phone was Krista Tippett On Being - I LOVE this podcast and Krista Tippett is a wonderful interviewer. The first one to come up was an April podcast, NUMBER 721 (I am not joking)  where Krista Tippett is interviewing Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Green Belt movement a long time SHE-RO of mine. Sadly she died in 2011, I have listened to, watched and read so much of her “stuff” over the years, and she is always such an amazing inspiration, (Thank you Dad!!!)

As I start to listen to this amazing woman’s indiginious, environmental and spiritual wisdom I was struck with an idea. The past three weeks have been a really good process for me for so many reasons, the only thing that would make it better is if I was able to do it with others and maybe start to curate the social impact library I have been trying to start for like 8 years!!! What if I called this Walking With Wisdom and my friends all around the world would share their Walking with Wisdom with me? Walking With Wisdom could be listening to a new podcast, walking with friends literally or virtually. I will call you on my walk and you can share your wisdom with me!!! What if I committed to sharing my walks with wisdom with my friends, family and community AND maybe just maybe I (and maybe we) would spend less time on social media discussing what we are against and instead discuss what we are for, instead of what is dividing us, talk about what brings us together?  

Would that be interesting to you? 

Well, tonight I am starting this grand experiment let me know if you would like to “walk” with me - you can comment here, private message me, call me, text me - whatever would be easiest. I want to know what is inspiring you in these times, because selfishly I surely need it!

#walking wisdom salty PSA depression liftingeachotherup